How Not to Design Your Own Cause Marketing Ad

Some people shouldn’t be allowed to do their own cause marketing advertising.

That’s what I thought after seeing this ad from the local franchisees for Window World, Doug and Kathy Llewellyn.

On the left half of the ad, about two-thirds of the way down are not one but three logos for causes: Window World Cares, the franchisor’s foundation, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Veterans Airlift Command.

Three causes is probably two too many for their customers and prospects to understand and follow. Right now Window World Cares primarily supports St. Jude and Veterans Airlift Command. Which begs the question, if the other two are already on there, why put the WWC logo there as well?

But ignore all that for a moment and put yourself in the mindset of a Window World franchisee like the Llewellyns. If you were them and you still wanted to support multiple causes, wouldn’t want to know which cause pulls the best?

Print ads like this would allow them to do just that. This ad comes from a shopper-style magazine that is 32 pages of ads. The shopper comes in several different editions. So Window World Utah could easily test which charity performs the best in a head-to-head competition.

Worse, from my perspective as a cause marketer, the ad has not just the cause marketing, but also a testimonial from radio talk show host Dave Ramsey, seals from Good Housekeeping and Energy Star, and no less than two phone numbers, four URLS and six dollar-signs. Whew!

In this ad the franchise throws everything against the wall to see what sticks. Trouble is, when you throw the whole pot of spaghetti…water and all… against the wall, almost none of it is going to stick!

Comments

Marcelle Green said…

The real issue here, I think, is that the cause-related marketing is an add-on to a boring price-product retail ad. The best cause marketing makes the cause the star. The second best cause marketing makes the cause a prominent benefit: "and with every order we'll donate $XX to YY."

12/01/2010 8:52 AM

Paul Jones said…

Hi Marcelle:

Dead on right.

Thanks for your comment.

Warm regards,
Paul

12/01/2010 9:40 AM

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...

A Clever Cause Marketing Campaign from Snickers and Feeding America

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog