Open Standards Cause Marketing

If cause marketing is to really grow, I'm increasingly coming to the opinion that cause marketing needs the equivalent of an ‘open standard.’ When speaking of software especially, the term ‘open standards’ means an agreed-upon convention that is free and unconstrained in how it can be used.

Open standards are enormously valuable to you and me. HTML and XHTML are open standards. PDF is an open standard and CD-ROMs will run in any computer with a CD-ROM drive because of open standards.

That you’re reading this post is because of an open standard called TCP-IP, which is the way website data is divided up into packets, transmitted, and then reassembled by servers somewhere near your computer or phone.

According to the entry on the topic in today’s (August 17, 2009) Wikipedia: Open Standards means “a published specification that is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle.” Its more complete definition according to the Digital Standards Organization is:

“The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organization, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties.

The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute, and use it freely.

The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.

There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.

A key defining property is that an open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle.

Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to improve upon, trust, and extend an open standard over time.”

What would be the benefits of open standards cause marketing?

It would create a series of cause marketing conventions that anyone could adopt, change and modify.
Because it would be free, it would eliminate some of the transaction costs of cause marketing.
It would make it easy for any sponsor to quickly plan and begin a cause marketing campaign.
It would give charities an easy starting point when approaching prospective sponsors.

What elements might be part of any cause marketing open standards?

Sponsorship contracts.
Maybe a seal of some kind.
General cause marketing approaches.
Standard donation amounts.

What else?

Honestly, my thinking on the subject is a work in progress. I’m not sure I know enough about the all the ins and outs of open standards to give more complete answers right now.

But I am convinced that just as all the big hotel chains in the U.S. profited when they worked together to create open standards for their reservation systems about a decade ago, the development of open standards for cause marketing would benefit all stakeholders involved in cause marketing, including the 'donors,' charities, sponsors and consultants like me.

I hope you’ll weigh in with your own thoughts and ideas.

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...

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...

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