Buy Groupon for $15, Donate $30 to Save the Children

Unless you’re clueless to the world of tech and marketing… like, say, a headhunter in New Guinea… or utterly distracted, like jailed Russian oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky…you’ve probably heard of Groupon (and the reported $6 billion buyout offer from Google the company turned down!).

Groupon is a deal-a-day website promoting local businesses to 35 million members in hundreds of cities in nine countries in North America, South America and Europe. One of Groupon’s most common approaches is to negotiate the sales of merchandise or services for half their listed price.

But the Groupon from Wednesday, Dec. 29 in Greenville, South Carolina offered a different sort of half-off promotion. When you donate $15 to Save the Children, $30 will go to the respected international aid charity.

How does that work?

The only way it could work is if one or more people provide the matching funds, and the Groupon site confirms this:

“All donations made via this Groupon support Save the Children's Global Action Fund and are matched up to $225,000 by a small group of private donors, many of whom are former children themselves.”

As of this writing the Groupon had attracted 1392 buyers with about 24 hours left on the offer, which is certainly respectable, but well short of the 15,000 buyers that $225,000 could match.

Every fundraiser knows that matches work, and this is a version of a matching campaign that I’d be interested to see other charities try.

That said, I do wonder if bringing the idea of ‘saving’ on charitable donations isn’t ultimately counterproductive to Save the Children and any other charity that tries it.

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