Cause Marketing That’s a Little Flat

Buy this special Strawberry Crème chocolate bar from Ritter Sport and when you do, you’ll help Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. make a $100,000 to The Leslie Simon Breast Care and Cytodiagnosis Center.

I bought this 100 gram bar from a floor-standing point of sale display. The coupon below was attached to the top of the display unit.

I had to look up The Leslie Simon Breast Care and Cytodiagnosis Center, but it’s a unit of the Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in Englewood, New Jersey, which is across the Hudson from Manhattan Island. I don’t know Englewood Hospital and Medical Center from Moses, but it is an affiliate of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, which is a respected name.

According to Ritter Sport’s U.S. website, the campaign was launched on October 1, 2010. But by the time I bought the chocolate bar at a neighborhood grocer on November 9, 2010, the display, which was one of those self-liquidating units, was still almost full. I'd bet that I bought the third of fourth bar sold out of an estimated 50 bars in the display.

That’s the challenge of being a specialty brand in a crowded marketplace like chocolate. Even though it’s a premium brand, in the United States Ritter Sport probably has to rely on a second-tier distribution network. Moreover, the display wasn’t exactly in prime real estate in the store where I bought it.

Worse, the display didn’t exactly tell the breast cancer story. It was mostly just pink ribbons and stacks of strawberry creme Ritter Sport bars.

I have an architect friend who, when he sees a building that is interesting looking but ultimately a failure, will try to soften the blow by saying without sarcasm or irony, "nice try."

I'm glad a respected German brand is cause marketing with an American cause. Like my architect friend says, nice try.

But between a promotion that wasn’t exactly timely on the ground, a charity that is almost obscure (the pink ribbon notwithstanding), a display that was underwhelming and poorly placed, this cause marketing promotion falls a little flat.

Comments

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...

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...

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...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog