Skip to main content

The Importance of Affinity in Cause Marketing

Implicit in any successful cause marketing campaign is the idea of affinity. Absent affinity, no cause marketing campaign is likely to soar

Think about it, if children with cancer don’t affect you emotionally, intellectually or otherwise, then you’re not likely to support any cause marketing campaign on behalf of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

And it has to be the right kind of affinity. I may love American Idol and Randy Jackson, seen in the FSI (Free-Standing Insert) on the left. But if I don’t have a cat then his endorsement of 9Lives isn’t likely to convince me to buy a bag of dry cat food.

So consider the case of this mailer from the Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database that mailed circa October 2004 from the cooperative marketing group for the Toyota Service Centers in my market. I get mailers like these about once a month. This one promoted a lube, oil and filter service featuring genuine Toyota parts.

In the red burst on the left side is the cause marketing offer. Buy this service for $25.95, and the Toyota Service Center will make a $2 donation to Weber State University automotive training programs, which the mailer points out, were negatively affected by State budget cuts.

The text of the burst makes it clear that the local Toyota Service Centers have some skin in the game.
“Weber State University trains our technicians to stay current with the ever more complex systems in your state of the art Toyota vehicles.”
But beyond owning Toyotas, I don’t have any skin in this game. While I admire Weber State University, I’m not an alumnus, nor is any immediate family member. Weber State’s campus is about 50 miles away, so I don’t have any particular affinity based on proximity. Moreover, the training of automotive technicians, while important, strikes me as exactly the kind of program that ought to be heavily funded by Toyota, its dealers, and service centers anyway.

In other words, I don’t have any affinity with the school or its automotive training programs. Ergo, the $2 donation represents no special incentive for me.

Who might have special affinity? That’s a tough one. Certainly graduates of Weber State’s automotive training programs, but almost by definition those people all change their own oil. What about other Weber State students, graduates, vendors, donors, faculty or staff?

They certainly have affinity for the school, but does that extend to any special affinity to an automotive training program? Difficult to say without surveying those groups.

In short, the Toyota Service Centers in my local market used a cause marketing ploy on a lot of people (myself included) that don’t have any natural affinity for the ‘cause.’

I don’t know what the results of the campaign were, but I do know that in the years since I received this I haven’t seen any other offer like this from my local Toyota Service Centers.

I’ll bet the campaign didn’t pay off.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
4 comments
Read more

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 ...
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