Consistency in Cause Marketing

I opened up the Alden Keene cause marketing database and set the dial to ‘way back.’ This ad from KitchenAid benefiting Susan G. Komen is from Sunset magazine in October 2002, the year most of today’s third graders were born and a just a year after KitchenAid started its sponsorship of Komen!

There’s a few things that have changed. But many more that haven’t. Let’s analyze the changes and similarities one by one.

The most obvious change is Komen’s name and logo. In 2002 Susan G. Komen for the Cure was still using its old silhouette logo and name.
Unchanged is Komen’s use of the ribbon, now in its 25th year.
The 9-cup pink-colored KitchenAid stand mixer, model KSM150PSPK is still available. Full retail price of the mixer is $299.99. It’s hard to find independent confirmation, but I believe that’s the same price KitchenAid charged for the KSM150PSPK in 2002. Other pink KitchenAid countertop appliances that generate smaller donations include a blender, food chopper, and food processor, among others.
Cookforthecure.com is still up and selling other pink KitchenAid merchandise like spatulas, pink silicone cake pans, kitchen timers and the like. The website says that Cook for the Cure has generated more than $7 million for Komen since 2001. The guaranteed minimum donation in 2010 is $350,000
The $50 donation to Komen when you buy the pink stand mixer and register it with KitchenAid is also still in place.

So with all this consistency is Cook for the Cure going stale?

Of course the risk is always there. But KitchenAid frequently adds new pink products to the mix. There’s new promotional elements. In 2007 they did a promotion with celebrity chef Jacques Pepin. In 2008 they did a pass the plate promotion whereby anytime someone passed on a special pink ribbon plate and registered online a $5 donation was triggered.

This year the promotion was called 1,000 Cooks for the Cure and it integrated both Pepin and the pass the plate element into a kind of home-party fundraiser for foodies benefiting Komen, and empowered by Facebook and Twitter. It's clever and true to the program's name 'Cook for the Cure!'

If KitchenAid and Komen can keep the surrounding promotions fresh, then the base effort with the pink KitchenAid items probably doesn’t need to vary much.

Comments

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 ...

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 ...

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 Marketing

Search This Blog