Cause Marketing Circa 2022

The current issue of Fortune magazine, modestly called 'The Future Issue,' examines what the world and the world of business will be like ten years hence in 2022.

Fortune’s prognosticators see video projected on every window surface, 3-D printers on every desktop, smart holographic table tops as in the movie Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, real-time subtitles for teleconferences, and apps that help you put together your ideal office work group. (That's an Eden 3D printer on the left, although it's not exactly a desktop model.)

Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of nonprofits, although Fortune does see people working later in life thanks to new miracle drugs and treatments for chronic conditions like arthritis. Great, I get to work for years to come!

But it set me to thinking; what’s the 10-year future of cause marketing, nonprofit fundraising and corporate social responsibility?

I put on my Merlin cap and came up with these three ideas:

Big Data and Cause Marketing. Fortune raises the idea of ‘big data,’ which means making sense out of all the data points that your mobile devices generate. Your phone collects tons of data having to do with time and place. In the near future when your phone is also your digital wallet, it will generate even more data. Part of that data will be records of you buying Campbell’s soup instead of Lipton, buying a bracelet at Starbucks that supports some cause. In 2022 a new kind of mathematician/marketer will parse all this data and deliver to your phone cause marketing offers customized distinctly to your behavior and preferences.

Honesty Machines. In the near future competitors, advocacy groups, government agencies and others will be able to deploy mobile machines able to accurately and remotely monitor smokestack emissions. Or the amount of CO2 released at airport taxi stands by idling taxis. Or the amount of offal generated by factory farms. Think of them as lie detectors for your business. By 2022 corporate social responsibility won’t be a matter of self-reporting any more. Independent groups and agencies will do the reporting and they will catch the liars and the fibbers.

Crowd-Sourcing Your Idle Hours for a Cause. Crowd-sourcing has been going on in nonprofits for several years now. Think about how amateur birders, for instance, currently help to complete population counts for university researchers, the Audubon Society or the state fish and game services. But by 2022 it will all the more convenient. Imagine, for example, that you’re jetting off to Seattle for a meeting and your smart phone knows that you... an amateur astronomer... have time to help The Royal Astronomical Society identify potential planets in distant star systems while you’re on the plane. It will route to your mobile device screens of space for you to review and analyze.

What do you see in 10 years for cause marketing? Please comment below.

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...

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