5% of $500 Million Would Be the Super Bowl of Cause Marketing

In time for Super Bowl 45 and its $100,000-a-second ads, Haberman, a media and marketing agency in Minneapolis has unveiled Add or Delete, a website and (potentially) a movement meant to persuade the global ad/marketing/PR agencies to donate 5% of the $500 billion annual global advertising budget to benefit global good.

5% of $500 billion would be $25 billion a year... the Super Bowl of Cause Marketing. That's a lot of scratch. But the numbers get big mighty fast when talking about the Super Bowl.

According to Haberman, a 30-second Super Bowl ad costs $1 million for production alone and another $3 million to air, meaning that Fox will gross something like $270 million for the 2011 game alone. In the last 20 years more than $2.7 billon has been spent on Super Bowl advertising.

Here’s what Haberman is suggesting. Go to the Add or Delete site on Facebook, a kind of ‘Hot or Not’ site for advertisements. If an ad inspires and delights, add it. If not, delete it. The sub rosa intent of the site, however, is to encourage global ad/marketing and PR agencies to convert 5% of the global ad spend to support the global good.

That's a goal I can get behind.

You may hear in Haberman’s challenge an echo of 1% for the Planet, founded in 2002 by Yvon Chouinard, founder of the company Patagonia, and Craig Matthews, owner of the firm Blue Ribbon Flies. The difference is that 1% for the Planet is an actual nonprofit charity that has ‘initiated,’ in their words, more than $50 million in environmental giving from corporations that bear the 1% for the Planet seal. All told more than 1400 companies in 38 countries have signed up and donated to more than 2,000 environment groups worldwide. And the premise of 1% is so straightforward that it takes a staff of just seven to administer it.

Haberman isn’t likely to start a “5% for Global Good” type nonprofit any time soon. Instead they’re taking advantage of the promotional hubbub that always accompanies Super Bowl ads to draw attention to what the advertising industry could do and be. As day follows night, after the Super Bowl airs there will be a raft of local and national TV shows and publications that will convene a panel of advertising executives to dissect the ads they saw. No doubt Haberman will issue a release after the Super Bowl to say how various ads did according to Add or Delete.

If Haberman wants this promotion to become a movement it will have to not only make its own 5% pledge, it will need to convince other agencies to do the same. And that’s no mean feat. Target, also headquartered in Minneapolis, has been openly giving 5% of income to nonprofits for decades. But not many of Target's competitors have matched the company's giving efforts.

Patagonia’s Chouinard says that participation in 1% for the Planet has yet to meet his expectations. “I would have thought that 1% for the Planet would be bigger by now,” Chouinard told Mountain Sports + Living magazine. It’s a disappointment that we haven’t attracted larger companies. Patagonia is still the largest member. There are so few companies giving back, even outdoor companies.”

I admire 1% for the Planet and I like Haberman’s effort. But good ideas don’t sell themselves. If Haberman really wants 5% to take off, it’s going to have to go to its peers and sell them on it.

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...

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