Failing Faster in Cause Marketing

Back in 2007 and 2008 Hamburger Helper ran a fun cause marketing promotion called My Hometown Helper that I don’t remember at all. In fact, there’s nothing about it at www.myhometownhelper.com, the campaign’s old website. Dial up that URL and you’ll be redirected to hamburgerhelper.com. If not for the Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database and the long tail of the Internet, My Hometown Helper would be just a distant memory for the Hamburger Helper brand manager and the recipients of the grants.

Here’s what a press release from General Mills, which owns the Hamburger Helper brand, said about the campaign in February 2008.

“Today, Hamburger Helper announces the call for entries to the 2008 "My Hometown Helper" grant program, a nationwide initiative that lends a "helping hand" to local groups making a difference in their community. People looking to improve their hometown -- from helping fund a volunteer fire department, to restoring a town landmark, to supporting a local school -- are encouraged to submit their entries before time runs out. From February 1st to March 31st, communities seeking support can visit www.myHometownHelper.com to apply online for a one-time grant to help fund a local project.

“’Our communities are incredibly important to us," said Hyun Mee Graves, Marketing Manager for Hamburger Helper. ‘Last fall's 'My Hometown Helper' grant program was a tremendous success, and we are reaching out to more communities in need with a second wave of the program this spring. We're dedicated to supporting projects that are making a difference right in your hometown.’

“Between February 1st and March 31st, applicants can submit an essay of 250 words or less describing how the grant would help with their community project. Award amounts will range from $500 to $15,000 and all requests for funding must be sponsored by a charitable organization, municipal or civic organization, or a public school. Funds will be awarded based on the merit of the project, including its impact on, and support within, the community, among other factors….

“Last year, 'My Hometown Helper' gave away more than $200,000 in grants and helped communities purchase new band equipment, build a school playground and fund a tornado warning system, among other great projects.”

I love cause marketing campaigns that go on for year after year because they build equity and momentum. Since every cause marketing effort isn’t likely to be a winner, one way to look at short-lived campaigns is that they’re a vital part of the process of learning what does and does not work.

In such cases, failure IS an option is a helpful mindset (unless you got astronauts trying to get home alive from an orbit of the moon. In which case, failure is not an option).

The problem with failure is that sometimes it’s just too darn slow. Think about it, in the movie Apollo 13, what saved astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise was that the engineers and technicians back in Houston failed really fast on their way to an eventual solution.

What cause marketing needs right now is causes and sponsors who are willing to risk failure in order to find the cause marketing campaign that really sings. And they need to fail in Internet time. That is, quickly.

Like Eric Ries, preaches in his book, the Lean Startup we cause marketers have got to find cheaper, faster ways to test the market potential of different cause marketing approaches. It’s not enough anymore to build something and then hope people like what you built.

Such an approach will take nerves of steel, the faith of a saint and, probably, the Internet, which enables failure to be quickly gauged.

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...

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...

An Interview with Cause-Related Marketing Pioneer Jerry Welsh

Jerry Welsh is the closest thing cause marketing has to a father. In 1983 after a number of regional cause-related marketing efforts, Welsh, who was then executive vice president of worldwide marketing and communications at American Express looked out his window in lower Manhattan at the Statue of Liberty. The Statue was then undergoing a major refurnishing, and in a flash Welsh determined to undertake the first modern national cause marketing campaign. I say modern because almost 100 years before in January 1885, the Statue of Liberty was sitting around in crates in New York warehouses because the organization building the pedestal ran out of money. And so Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher of the newspaper called The World , proposed a very grassroots solution reminiscent in its own way to Welsh’s cause-related marketing. Pulitzer ran an editorial promising he would print the name of everyone who donated even a penny. Sure enough pennies, along with dimes and nickels, quarters a...

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