Cause Marketing Pastiche

Today’s post features a collection of all kinds of news relating to cause marketing, corporate giving and charitable donations. With my comments in italics.

Stationary for the Troops
For every $50 spent at FineStationary.com through the end of the year they will donate stationary, note cards and writing papers to members of the armed forces deployed overseas via Operation Gratitude. Hey, I appreciate businesses do what they can. But $50 is a pretty high threshold to trigger what amounts to an in-kind gift.

Corporate Giving up in 2007
The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy in New York released the results of a survey that found that corporations increased their giving in 2007 over the year prior when measured as median amount and when measured as a percentage of pre-tax profits. 2007 was a year of mixed economic news. Maybe this bodes well for 2008-9.

A Holiday Card that Gives
Network for Good offers a ‘Good Card’ this holiday season meant to serve as a client gift. You load the card with an amount of money… the increments are $10, $25, $50 and $100… and then via Network for Good the client can then make a donation to the charity of their choice. It’s pretty slick. I found the art on the card to be too clever by half. And it’s not clear whether or not the recipient could divide their gift between multiple charities. I also wonder who ends up with the donor data?

A New Online Giving Portal
Presently in beta is a new online giving portal called Razoo. As you make donations to charities Razoo creates a portfolio of your giving, compiling news items about the charities and the like. Razoo is also working on a private label option for corporations. My first reaction if I’m a charity is that there sure are a lot of outfits nowadays that are trying to get between me and my donors/potential donors.

Chocolate Truffles for Darfur
Los Angeles based Compartes Chocolatier offers truffles and other goodies, made with African ingredients, that benefit Relief International’s work in Darfur. Sounds yummy. I wish the website would have been transparent on the amount generated by the purchase.

Heroes at Home
Military Families sometimes go without while their loved ones serve abroad. This Christmas season Sears and Lands End are asking people to make donations to the 30,583 military families who have registered their needs/wishes at the Heroes at Home website. Singer Trisha Yearwood is the celebrity face of the campaign. I have a soft heart for the armed forces and those who ‘keep the home fires burning,’ so I have an special fondness for this campaign. If Sears wants this to grow, however, they’re going to have to do what General Mills did with it Labels for Education campaign and set Heroes at Home free.

Art Show LA
Make a donation to the Tereo School for street orphans in Helderberg, near Cape Town, South Africa and get free admission to the Art Show LA event on Dec. 17. A nice promotion well suited for Art Show LA’s audience.

Batting Your Eyelashes at Prescription Drug Cause Marketing

I’m a little chary about making sweeping pronouncements, but I believe I've just seen the first cause marketing promotion in the U.S. involving a prescription drug. The drug is from Allergan and it’s called Latisse , “the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for inadequate or not enough eyelashes.” The medical name for this condition is hypotrichosis. Latisse is lifestyle drug the way Viagra or Propecia are. That is, no one’s going to die (except, perhaps, of embarrassment) if their erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or thin eyelashes go untreated. Which means the positioning for a product like Latisse is a little tricky. Allergan could have gone with the sexy route as with Viagra or Cialis and showed lovely women batting their new longer, thicker, darker eyelashes. But I’ll bet that approach didn’t test well with women. (I’m reminded of a joke about the Cialis ads from a comedian whose name I can’t recall. He said, “Hey if my erection lasts longer than ...

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to ...

Chili’s and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

I was in Chili’s today and I ordered their “Triple-Dipper,” a three appetizer combo. While I waited for the food, I noticed another kind of combo. Chili’s is doing a full-featured cause-related marketing campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. There was a four-sided laminated table tent outlining the campaign on the table. When the waitress brought the drinks she slapped down Chili’s trademark square paper beverage coasters and on them was a call to action for an element of the campaign called ‘Create-A-Pepper,’ a kind of paper icon campaign. The wait staff was all attired in black shirts co-branded with Chili’s and St. Jude. The Create-A-Pepper paper icon could be found in a stack behind the hostess area. The Peppers are outlines of Chili’s iconic logo meant to be colored. I paid $1 for mine, but they would have taken $5, $10, or more. The crayons, too, were co-branded with the ‘Create-A-Pepper’ and St. Jude’s logos. There’s also creatapepper.com, a microsite, but again wi...

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