Skip to main content

Fisher-Price Wildlife Conservation Society Cause Marketing

Research and experience clearly demonstrate that one of the greatest determinants of success in a cause marketing campaign is the fit between the cause and sponsor.


But what does ‘fit’ mean?


If you’re a book publisher can you only work with literacy charities? If you make food, can you only partner with hunger charities? If you sell computers can you only work with schools?


And what if you make Twitter apps but want to conduct cause marketing, who do you partner with?


These and other questions came to me when I say this campaign from Fisher-Price benefiting the Wildlife Conservation Society, which I saw advertised in the Jan 2009 issue of Parenting magazine. Infant and baby toymaker Fisher-Price… started in 1930 in the fore-throes of the Great Depression, by the way…has been owned by Mattel since 1997.


Fisher-Price offers a whole collection of wild animal-themed baby and infant toys it calls Precious Planet. This isn’t transactional cause marketing. Rather Fisher-Price will make a donation to Wildlife Conservation Society of $250,000 regardless of how well the Precious Planet line sells.


Here’s how Fisher-Price substantiates its choice to partner with the Wildlife Conservation Society, a conservation and education nonprofit with a 114-year tie to the Bronx Zoo in New York.

“Children have a natural affinity for animals. We nurture this connection from their earliest days, giving them stuffed animal friends to hug and cuddle and introducing our pets to our children as members of the family. We read picture books about animals to our babies, and we teach our toddlers to identify them and the sounds they make. As our children grow, we take them out into nature and to places like farms and zoos where they can see many different types of creatures in real life.

”But the most important thing we can teach our children about animals is that we need to be good friends to them – responsible caretakers of the environments we share, so animals all over the world can be healthy and thrive.”

Using such broadly-stroked language almost any company could choose a charity partner with an environmental or conservationist mission, even that Twitter app company.


But do you buy it? Is the fit between Fisher-Price and the Wildlife Conservation Society valid?


I hope you’ll comment below.

Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
Clearly cause marketing campaigns need to be relevant for a particular company or product so that consumers can understand the connection. In many cases, as in this Fisher-Price example, organizations are trying to broaden their scope to accommodate different consumer preferences. As long as the messaging supports the campaign, I am all for it!
4/03/2009 11:52 AM
Rama Tadepalli said…
Supporting a cause without a transaction focus isn't any different from sponsorship. My understanding of cause-based marketing was that such a campaign follows all the principles of marketing to get customers involved with the brand and the cause. And most importantly,the benefit to business can be established directly by associating with a cause. Fischer Price and Conservation of animals may not be too far fetched, but by not associating fund raising with product purchase, am not sure what impact Fisher-Price would have had on creating a cause-brand ownership in the customers' minds.
4/10/2009 3:50 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
4 comments
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
11 comments
Read more