Recycled Cause Marketing

Capri Sun, the Kraft Foods brand that packages portable juice drinks in those aluminum-polyethylene pouches has teamed with TerraCycle, the innovative recycler, that promises to keep juice pouches out of the waste stream, while paying schools $0.02 cents per pouch.

[Oops. My bad. That makes it seem like Kraft is actually doing some work here when in fact all the heavy lifting is being done by TerraCycle. That said, Kraft probably paid for this ad in Cookie magazine (and elsewhere) and the attending promotional and PR efforts.]

Here’s how it works. You sign up at TerraCycle and they will send your school four bags. Each bag holds 100 pouches. Fill 'em up and they'll send you more. TerraCycle pays $0.02 cents for each Capri Sun, Honest Kids and Kool Aid pouches. All other pouches pay $0.01 cents per pouch. TerraCycle pays twice a year.

In turn, TerraCycle ‘upcycles’ (their term) the pouches into backpacks, totes and pencil cases. While the materials that comprise the pouches can be repurposed as in TerraCycle's scheme, they can not otherwise be recycled using ordinary means.

You don’t have to think too hard about this to realize that the whole enterprise depends on TerraCycle’s ability to find a market for the pouch-based backpacks, et al.

Back on October 10, 2008 when I reviewed Nestle Waters North America’s school label collection campaign called GoLife, that is similar to this campaign in some respects, I wrote:

I’m all in favor of using cause-related marketing to help companies solve challenging PR issues. But if it’s going to preserve market share Nestle has to do something more holistic than GoLife to counter that perception.

If they can find a market for the resulting products, I think TerraCycle (and Kraft) have solved the problem that Nestle didn’t. And whereas the the GoLife campaign seemed very corporate, Kraft's TerraCycle campaign gives off a much more organic vibe.

I wish ‘em luck.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Good catch, Paul. There's a whole CSR intermediary market (I'm thinking buy 1 get 1) opening up and TerraCycle seems to have nailed it. Kraft is starting to get it as well - They have effectively incorporated this CSR "plug-in" into their brand message and image where it may be mistaken for an in-house operation. Indeed, an authentic, "organic vibe."

KyNam

1/06/2009 11:59 PM

Paul Jones said…

Thanks KyNam. I agree. Just yesterday I came across a company that makes cause marketing widgets, along with others. Really slick.

1/07/2009 7:31 AM

Part 2: How Chili's Used Cause-Related Marketing to Raise $8.2 million for St. Jude

[Bloggers Note: In this second half of this post I discuss the nuts and bolts of how Chili's motivates support from its employees and managers and how St. Jude 'activates' support from Chili's. Read the first half here.] How does St. Jude motivate support from Chili’s front line employees and management alike? They call it ‘activation’ and they do so by the following: They share stories of St. Jude patients who were sick and got better thanks to the services they received at the hospital. Two stories in particular are personal for Chili’s staff. A Chili’s bartender in El Dorado Hills, California named Jeff Eagles has a younger brother who was treated at St. Jude. In both 2005 and 2006 Eagles was the campaign’s biggest individual fundraiser. John Griffin, a manager at the Chili’s in Conway, Arkansas had an infant daughter who was treated for retinoblastoma at St. Jude. They drew on the support Doug Brooks… the president and CEO of Brinker International, Chili’s parent co...

Cause-Related Marketing with Customer Receipts

Walgreens and JDRF Right now at Walgreens…the giant pharmacy and retail store chain with more than 5,800 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico… they’re selling $1 paper icons for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). This is an annual campaign and I bought one to gauge how it’s changed over the years. (Short list… they don’t do the shoe as a die cut anymore; the paper icon is now an 8¾ x 4¼ rectangle. Another interesting change; one side is now in Spanish). The icon has a bar code and Jacob, the clerk, scanned it and handed me a receipt as we finished the transaction. At the bottom was an 800-number keyed to a customer satisfaction survey. Dial the number, answer some questions and you’re entered into a drawing for $10,000 between now and the end of September 2007. I don’t know what their response rate is, but the $10,000 amount suggests that it’s pretty low. Taco Bell’s survey gives out $1,000 per week. At a regional seafood restaurant they give me a code that garner...

An Interview with Cause-Related Marketing Pioneer Jerry Welsh

Jerry Welsh is the closest thing cause marketing has to a father. In 1983 after a number of regional cause-related marketing efforts, Welsh, who was then executive vice president of worldwide marketing and communications at American Express looked out his window in lower Manhattan at the Statue of Liberty. The Statue was then undergoing a major refurnishing, and in a flash Welsh determined to undertake the first modern national cause marketing campaign. I say modern because almost 100 years before in January 1885, the Statue of Liberty was sitting around in crates in New York warehouses because the organization building the pedestal ran out of money. And so Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher of the newspaper called The World , proposed a very grassroots solution reminiscent in its own way to Welsh’s cause-related marketing. Pulitzer ran an editorial promising he would print the name of everyone who donated even a penny. Sure enough pennies, along with dimes and nickels, quarters a...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog