Skip to main content

Grassroots Cause Marketing from Volvo

Buy a virtual glass of lemonade from Lemonadestandforlife.com, sponsored by Volvo, and the money goes to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to support families who must travel for their child’s cancer treatments.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, is named for Alex Scott, who in the year 2000 at the age of 4 announced to her parents that pediatric cancer must be cured and to do her part she was going to sell lemonade from a stand. Alex herself suffered from neuroblastoma and died in 2004 at the tender age of 8. By then she had already raised $1 million for cancer research.

Now a 501(c)(3) charity, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, has generated $35 million for cancer research, $12 million of it from lemonade stands.

Volvo’s relationship with ALSF began in 2002 when Alex was nominated for the inaugural Volvo for Life Awards. She won it in 2003. And in 2004 Volvo dealers helped Alex meet her goal to raise $1 million for pediatric cancer research before the year end. Sadly, Alex died in August 2004. But inspired by her determination, Volvo dealers pitched in and helped Alex surpass her goal. At left is an ad from the Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database that gives a little more background on the relationship.

Volvo does an annual national car raffle for ALSF. And Volvo seeded the Lemonadestandforlife.com with a $200,000 donation. There’s a counter on the site, which came online in time for Christmas 2010, that says: “As of today, 213,688 cups have been purchased.”

Assuming everyone paid $1 a cup that means that the virtual lemonade stand has generated $13,688 above and beyond Volvo’s donation.

If true, that has to be a disappointment for both ALSF and Volvo. The problem, in my view, is that too often these virtual icon campaigns don’t offer quite enough. These promotions can seem thin. Recognizing this, the MDA, a few years back, added a free musical download to people who bought their virtual shamrock. But I’m not sure that’s enough any more.

The site does offer the usual social media ways of distributing the purchased lemonade cup; email, Facebook and Twitter. But by itself, plain vanilla social media isn’t enough either.

Imagine instead a game. Maybe the cups of lemonade are launched at a penguin, Alex’s favorite animal, whose thirst can’t seem to be slaked. Think Angry Birds. You play the game for a $1 donation and your score is posted on Twitter and Facebook. You get extra plays for more money or for sending links to friends in your social network. The game would have levels and would be able to remember where you left off.

This is more involved in every way than the simple website Volvo has posted, but also more involving. Done right the game would be sticky. Something users would return to again and again.


Lastly, Happy Birthday to my own Alex!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
11 comments
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more