Cause Marketing for Good Eggs

One of the reasons companies participate in cause marketing is to preserve pricing power.

This is more than just a theory. A University of Michigan study published in April 2009 confirmed the efficacy of cause marketing as a corporate strategy for preserving pricing.

Consumers these days have all kinds of power that they didn’t have even 10 years ago. The shelves of today’s grocery stores groan with choice. And in the soft economy, rare is the food producer that can actually raise prices.

That said you don’t often see a sponsor nakedly admit that it utilizes cause marketing in order to keep prices up.

But that’s exactly what Eggland’s Best does in this free-standing insert (FSI) that dropped in my local newspaper on October 31, 2010.

The campaign is basically a licensing deal. Eggland’s Best is giving Susan G. Komen for the Cure $50,000 in exchange for the right to print Komen’s version of the pink ribbon on its eggs during ‘Autumn 2010.’

Eggland’s Best chickens are fed a specially-formatted vegetarian feed with the result being eggs that are lower in cholesterol and saturated fat than regular eggs, and higher in Omega 3 and a number of vitamins. I've had them from time to time and they're good eggs.

But that goodness comes at a premium. In Northern Virginia, Eggland’s Best are going for $3.49 a dozen at Peapod, compared to about $2.25 for a dozen of the house-brand eggs.

Here’s how the body copy reads:

“As always, when you purchase Eggland’s Best eggs you can feel good about giving your family the very best in taste and nutrition. But now you can also feel good about helping to find the cure for a disease that affects millions."

“Eggland’s Best. Now, more than ever, they’re worth it.” (Emphasis mine).

Eggland’s Best needs to give its ad agency copywriters a couple of days off. Plainly these folks are overworked!