Does the End of White Coke Cans Mean the End of Cause Marketing on Packaging? Um...No.

The cause marketing world is all a-Twitter with the news that Coke is retracting its first-ever mostly-white cans meant to call attention to the plight of ursas maritimus. (Collector alert!) Apparently, too many consumers took the special packaging of polar bears gamboling across the tundra for Diet Coke, which, in fact, comes in silver cans.

I don’t have the energy to assign blame, ask if Coke over-reacted, wonder about the institutional competence of Coke’s marketing team, or worry about what this means to the future of cause marketing’s place on packaging.

That’s because cause marketing’s place on packaging is long since ensured, as the ad at the left from Fast Company helps demonstrate.

Buy a specially-marked bottle of Belvedere vodka and LVMH, the brand’s owner, will donate 50% of profits to RED’s Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. LVMH is the acronym for the French luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, (whose CEO is Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest person, FYI.)

The packaging uses RED’s trademark brackets, which frame Belweder, the Polish presidential palace. As a non-drinker, I can’t knowledgeably comment about Belvedere’s qualities, but this Christmas/New Year’s promotion strikes me as being well played. The label makes smart use of RED’s branding, Usher is a good choice as pitch man, there's a QR code in the ad, and Bono assures us that the Global Fund is making real headway in Africa, just like the quote attributed to Usher says.

Of course all bets are off if Diet Coke drinkers mistake it for a bottle of their favorite cola. ;).

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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...

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...

A Clever Cause Marketing Campaign from Snickers and Feeding America

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor...

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