Cause Marketing: The Offer You Can Refuse

So insidious, wretched, low-down, and invidious are the techniques of cause marketing that they should be banned for use by soft drink companies, argues a staff attorney for the advocacy group The Public Health Advocacy Institute in an article published on the PHAI website titled “Organizations that Care About Health Should Play No Part in the Soft Drink Industry’s Effort to Rehabilitate Its Public Image.”

After citing the many cause marketing successes from Coke and Pepsi, author Cara Wilking concludes: “Organizations that care about health should establish a policy that identifies and distinguishes between traditional business relationships, corporate philanthropy and cause-marketing and should commit to not participate in cause-marketing campaigns that promote products, such as sugary drinks, that pose a public health threat.”

What Ms. Wilking would have us believe is that cause marketing is irresistible. A kind of catnip that we mere mortals can't begin to say no to. Hence, it should be banned whenever the catnip is associated with a product that's bad for us.

Tell that to Sigg Switzerland USA, the U.S. distributor for Sigg bottles, which filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in May 2011.

The Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database has samples of cause marketing efforts from Sigg as recently as 2009. For instance the ad at the left from Sigg promotes a cause marketing campaign from Sigg meant to build rainwater collection tanks for schoolchildren in Africa in an effort from the Jane Goodall Institute.

Another ad featured Yvon Chouinard, founder of the company Patagonia as well as the environmental organization 1% for the Planet. Buy a Sigg bottle and $5 went to 1% for the Planet.

The reason Sigg Switzerland USA is now bankrupt is because the company repeatedly insisted that the plastics which line its aluminum bottles weren’t made with BPA, a toxin.

Trouble is, they were. Sigg lied and faced numerous lawsuits, including class action lawsuits. People and companies lost trust, notably Chouinard's Patagonia. Sigg bottles, which have always been expensive relative to competitors, went into a death spiral.

So my response to Ms. Wilking is that while cause marketing is effective when done correctly, it’s not a silver bullet or special voodoo. No one loses their sense of free will when they see a cause marketing offer. Done right it will make offers more compelling. But it doesn't make for offers you can't refuse.

Nobody has to drink Coke or Pepsi products, any more than someone has to use a Sigg bottle to drink water from, all the cause marketing in the world notwithstanding.

Comments

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...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog