Cause Marketing Our Thanks

Starting today you can use the We&Co smartphone app to thank firefighters, police officers and other first responders who distinguished themselves by their bravery, sacrifice and service during the attacks of 9/11 ten years ago in partnership with The New York Says Thank You Foundation. The goal is to generate 10,000 ‘thanks’ through the We&Co app.

We&Co is a location-based mobile app in the vein of Foursquare or Yelp. Only instead of rallying to sites to collect badges or grade meals, We&Co helps you to rate favorite service providers: a barista, stylist, bartender, waitress, and the like.

We&Co takes the emphasis off the place and puts it on the people. It’s the anti-Groupon, We&Co co-founder Jared Malan told Good, because instead of being drawn by discount prices people will come to establishments for outstanding service.

Service providers end up with their own ratings, which has the potential to become a kind of social currency. For that reason We&Co puts off a European vibe to me. In many countries of Europe being a waiter is professional career that comes with a commensurate salary. In the United States most people waiting tables aren’t professionals, they’re students (or 'actors,' as the cliché goes) working for tips.

The app, which is draws on Foursquare’s API, is free at the We&Co website or at the App Store. We&Co’s business model is based on local advertising dollars and aggregating and selling the collected data.

The New York Says Thank You Foundation commemorates the many acts of service that was visited upon New Yorkers and New York in the wake of 9/11 by sending out volunteers from New York and elsewhere to help communities recovering from their own disasters. Its “business model” is based on the heart-warming pay it forward model.

The match between We&Co and The New York Says Thank You Foundation, both of which are all about thanks, is just terrific. No doubt my friend (and distant cousin) Ryan Jones, another Me&Co co-founder, had some hand in making that match.

Remember that adage, popular a few years back, that in the information economy a company’s greatest assets walk out the door every night? Originally that meant engineers and developers and the like.

With its unique take on thanking people, We&Co has the potential show how true that is for the service economy too.

Comments

Part 2: How Chili's Used Cause-Related Marketing to Raise $8.2 million for St. Jude

[Bloggers Note: In this second half of this post I discuss the nuts and bolts of how Chili's motivates support from its employees and managers and how St. Jude 'activates' support from Chili's. Read the first half here.] How does St. Jude motivate support from Chili’s front line employees and management alike? They call it ‘activation’ and they do so by the following: They share stories of St. Jude patients who were sick and got better thanks to the services they received at the hospital. Two stories in particular are personal for Chili’s staff. A Chili’s bartender in El Dorado Hills, California named Jeff Eagles has a younger brother who was treated at St. Jude. In both 2005 and 2006 Eagles was the campaign’s biggest individual fundraiser. John Griffin, a manager at the Chili’s in Conway, Arkansas had an infant daughter who was treated for retinoblastoma at St. Jude. They drew on the support Doug Brooks… the president and CEO of Brinker International, Chili’s parent co...

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-Related Marketing with Customer Receipts

Walgreens and JDRF Right now at Walgreens…the giant pharmacy and retail store chain with more than 5,800 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico… they’re selling $1 paper icons for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). This is an annual campaign and I bought one to gauge how it’s changed over the years. (Short list… they don’t do the shoe as a die cut anymore; the paper icon is now an 8¾ x 4¼ rectangle. Another interesting change; one side is now in Spanish). The icon has a bar code and Jacob, the clerk, scanned it and handed me a receipt as we finished the transaction. At the bottom was an 800-number keyed to a customer satisfaction survey. Dial the number, answer some questions and you’re entered into a drawing for $10,000 between now and the end of September 2007. I don’t know what their response rate is, but the $10,000 amount suggests that it’s pretty low. Taco Bell’s survey gives out $1,000 per week. At a regional seafood restaurant they give me a code that garner...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog