Christmas Cause Marketing on TV

I started my cause marketing career back when gasoline cost about $1.15 a gallon, the median price of a house was a little more than $80,000 and a 30-second Super Bowl ad cost ‘just’ $850,000. And yet cheap as prices were back in 1992 do you think any sponsor would spring for even one national cause marketing ad on TV?

The answer is a resounding ‘no!’

Yet right now there’s goodly number of sponsors whose Christmas ad mix includes cause marketing messaging on behalf of a cause. At left are two current ads that I found on YouTube, one for Coke’s campaign on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund and the other from Macy’s Believe effort benefiting Make-a-Wish.

It may be that the version running in your market is different, but it’s enough to say that both firms are actively advertising their cause promotions on TV.

I won’t bother dissecting either ad beyond saying that the Coke ad is just a little too earnest while the Macy’s ad strikes just about the right tone.

But I want to have a little fun with these ads, so I’m launching a little contest. The winner will receive a copy of Joe Waters and Joanna MacDonald’s book ‘Cause Marketing for Dummies.’

Here’s the contest. Whoever comes closest to predicting the total number of views both videos will have on their respective YouTube channels at 11:59 PM (Mountain Time) on December 31, 2011 will win a copy of the Cause Marketing for Dummies book.

As of this writing the Macy’s ad currently has 18,346 views, while the Coke ad has 20,281.

To enter the contest email your predictions to aldenkeene at gmail dot com. The deadline to enter is Dec. 15, 2011.

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