Skip to main content

Four Publications, Four Sponsors, Four Seal Campaigns

Remember the scene in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off when he’s rhapsodizing about the 1961 Ferrari GT California Spyder he’s been bombing around Chicago in? He says to the camera, breaking the fourth wall, “It is so choice. If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up.” Means indeed. A vintage 250 is said to set one back a cool $10 million.

In a like way, if your charity brand has the means, I highly recommend that you pick up a kind of cause marketing that I’ve come to call a ‘seal campaign.’ Seal campaigns are endorsements or licensing arrangements that carry the logo or seal of a charity, usually following an audit of some kind and the payment of a fee. Think seals of approval.

The one I see the most often these days is for the Forest Stewardship Council, which was founded in Bonn, Germany in 1993. The FSC has a rather complicated organizational structure, but suffice it to say that the FSC seal can be seen in dozens of countries across the globe on every kind of packaging, emblazoned on wood itself and printed on coffee cup sleeves, to name just a few places.

If the FSC were a car, it would be a rare $10 million Ferrari.

But even non-vintage Fords and Chevys can and do have successful seal campaigns.

The Pasadena Tournament of Roses for instance, has offered its seal of approval to Bayer rose and garden chemicals.

The Skin Cancer Foundation offers a seal of approval to a skin-care products, especially sunblocks.

With 1400 or so members and now in its tenth year, One Percent for the Planet isn’t as big as founder Yvon Chouinard says he wishes it were, or thought it would be. But it’s a terrific business model, eminently sustainable and attractive to outfits like Fiji Water.

I’ve opined here in the past that the Fair Trade Certified probably has a better chance at long-term success than rivals with their super-detailed certification processes. By contrast the Fair Trade Alliance requires only that buyers pay producers more for farmed goods and handicrafts than the prevailing market prices.

Could your nonprofit pull off a seal effort? Maybe.

It would probably need to meet a certain level of name recognition. And it wouldn't hurt if your organization’s name signifies what it does. Your organization would need to be able to develop some kind of standard that sponsors must meet. And it would need to have the will to enforce that standard honestly. If you can get away without actually having to physically test stuff, all the better.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Three Ways to Be Charitable

I’ve spent a big chunk of my career working with or for charities. Many of my dearest and ablest friends are in the charity ‘space.’ And the creativity and problem-solving coming out of the nonprofit sector has never been greater.  Although I’ve had numerous nonprofit clients over the last decade or so, I haven’t worked in a charity for about 12 years now, which gives me a certain distance. Distance lends perspective and consequently, I get a lot of people asking me which charities I recommend for donations of money or time. My usual answer is, “it depends.” “On what?” they respond. “On what you want from your charitable activities,” I reply. It sounds like a weaselly consultant kind of an answer, but bear with me for a moment. The English word charity comes from the Latin word caritas and means “from the heart,” implying a voluntary act. Caritas is the same root word for cherish. The Jews come at charity from a different direction. The Hebrew word that is usually rendered as charity is t…
Post a Comment
Read more

Top Eight Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns of 2007

Yeah, You Read it Right. It's a Top 8 List.

More cause-related marketing campaigns are unveiled every day across the world than I review in a year at the cause-related marketing blog. And, frankly, I don’t see very many campaigns from outside North America. So I won’t pretend that my annual list of the top cause-related marketing campaigns is exhaustive.

But, like any other self-respecting blogger, I won’t let my superficial purview stop me from drawing my own tortured conclusions!

So… cue the drumroll (and the dismissive snickers)… without further ado, here is my list of the eight best cause-related marketing campaigns of 2007.

My list of the worst cause-related marketing campaigns of 2007 follows on Thursday.


Chilis and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
I was delighted by the scope of Chilis’ campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As you walked in you saw the servers adorned in black co-branded shirts. Other elements included message points on the Chilis beverage coas…
Post a Comment
Read more

Five Steps To Nurture a 30-Year Cause Marketing Relationship

Last Monday, July 22, 2013, March of Dimes released the annual results of its campaign with Kmart... now in its thirtieth year... and thereby begged the question, what does it takes to have a multi-decade cause marketing relationship between a cause and a sponsor?

In the most recent year, Kmart,the discount retailer, donated $7.4 million to the March of Dimes, bringing the 30-year total to nearly $114 million. March of Dimes works to improve the health of mothers and babies.

Too many cause marketing relationships, in my estimation, resemble speed-dating more than long-term marriage. There can be good reasons for short-term cause marketing relationships. But most causes and sponsors benefit more from long-term marriages than short-term hookups, the main benefit being continuity. Cause marketing trades on the trust that people, usually consumers, put in the cause and the sponsor. The longer the relationship lasts the more trust is evidenced.

There's also a sponsor finding cost that…
Post a Comment
Read more