Business to Business Cause Marketing

Generally cause marketing is targeted to consumers. But there are examples of B2B (business to business) cause marketing, including the one at the left.

There’s a lot of moving parts in this promotion, so bear with me for a paragraph or two of explanation.

When you buy an ad that will appear in a special tabloid-sized insert in both of Salt Lake City’s daily newspapers, 10% of the ad price will go to purchase books for children in low-income homes. The insert drops on Sunday, March 27, 2011.

The insert will be about the “Utah Story Literacy Event,” which is a telethon/radiothon event to be held March 30, 2011 with a goal of raising $1 million.

The money raised from the event will go to the Road to Success program, which will use the funds to place children’s books in low-income homes.

Road to Success was started by the Robert H. and Katherine B. Garff Foundation. Robert Garff, a prominently local community leader, owns the Ken Garff Automotive Group, a collection of about two dozen car dealerships in Utah.

The Ken Garff Automotive Group also sponsors the Road to Success, an early reading program for students in Utah elementary schools. Garff also sponsors Keys to Success which rewards high-achieving high school students with things like iPads and even used cars from the Ken Garff Automotive Group.

Salt Lake City’s two dailies have separate newsrooms and are separately owned but they are operated under a joint operating agreement. Both publishing groups share ownership of Media One, which prints the newspapers and sells all their advertising.

Media One was the earliest media sponsor of both Keys to Success and the Road to Success. With the Utah Story Literacy Event insert Media One has the opportunity to sell a little advertising inventory as well as support the fundraising goal of its long-time partner.

The challenge for Media One will be, who will want to sponsor the insert? Existing sponsors are a likely starting point for Media One. However, I’ve worked on these kinds of newspaper inserts myself and we carved out ad space to recognize big sponsors, although Media One’s arrangement with Utah Story Literacy Event may be different.

What do you think? What are some examples of B2B cause marketing you’ve seen?

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