What Sponsors Should Measure in Cause Marketing Campaigns

If you’re the sponsor of a cause marketing campaign, you’re in the green room, you’re in a makeup chair and you’re sitting pretty.

Here’s what I mean. When I was writing the Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Telethon a representative from one of CMN’s largest sponsors used to avail herself of the same makeup services provided for celebrity hosts and guests. Strictly speaking this was verboten. While she appeared on air during sponsor segments, CMN had a separate makeup area for sponsors.

She had some thin excuse why she couldn’t use the regular makeup services… skin allergies or something. At any rate, everyone from CMN in a position to raise the issue with her chose to just let it go. She had a volcanic temper and if she took up a little face time with an honest-to-pete Hollywood makeup artist, what did it really matter?

It’s not so different when it comes to evaluating the success of a cause marketing campaign. While the cause and agency in a cause marketing campaign should have their own criteria for measuring a campaign’s success, the criteria that matters most comes from the sponsor.

It’s the golden rule in action; she who has the gold makes the rules.

So what should the sponsor measure and evaluate?

Social media 'expressions' and their quality.
Dollars raised (if it’s that kind of campaign).
New customers (if it's that kind of campaign).
Customer opinion surveys measured against prior years.
The campaign as it compares against competitors and similar campaigns.
Old media impressions data.
Some sort of measure(s) of pathology. That is, where things are going wrong. If 65 percent of stakeholders complain about the same five things about your campaign, you've got a punch list.

When it comes to gauging external audiences, most of these measurements suggest themselves and so I won’t go further.

Measuring expressions is a new metric that has come with the rise of social media. It gauges how much traffic your brand gets away from your direct control: Tweets, fans/friends on Facebook, bookmarks on the social bookmark sites like Digg, Delicious, love from bloggers, and the like. People don't have to say nice things or not so nice things about your campaign or brand. To the degree that they do, it's worth measuring.

I would argue that one area that sponsors, nonprofits and agencies frequently miss is the measurement of their internal audiences, including rank and file employees, vendors, partners, etc.

A well-imagined and executed cause marketing campaign can help give a company real personality. Cause marketing at some companies helps with employee loyalty and retention. Moreover, with their money or their time, internal audiences often ‘pay’ for a good chunk of cause marketing campaigns.

Wouldn’t it be good to know if your employees find the campaign to be unrewarded drudgery? Or, that your vendors would happily pay more for their participation in the celebrity golf tourney? Isn’t that information worth knowing as you mull over your participation in next year’s campaign?

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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