Cause Marketing and 'Nature Deficit Disorder'

Just last night my youngest asked me what my favorite thing to do was when I was her age. I grew up on the edge of the Sonoran Desert and outside our home near a crossroads was a large mound of brush several hundred feet across that was home to all manner of desert animals, reptiles and insects. Many is the hour I spent watching creatures crawl in to and out of that mound. To this day I remember vividly a grisly encounter between a rattlesnake and a roadrunner, where, as in the Warner Brothers’ cartoon, the roadrunner emerged unscathed.

In short, I didn't suffer from what author Richard Louv has called ‘Nature Deficit Disorder.’

But in his 2005 book ‘Last Child in the Woods,’ Louv describes the possible effects:

Limited respect for natural surroundings

Attention deficit disorders, depressions, mood disorders, and poor grades.

Childhood obesity.

So far, no medical manual recognizes Nature Deficit Disorder, but the outdoor products company The North Face does and is actively promoting around it with a cause marketing campaign called Role Models.

Role Models asks adults to take a pledge to expose kids to the out-of-doors. This is cause marketing, but it’s largely non-transactional. The North Face wants you to do something, not donate money with your purchase. Here’s how it works:

On The North Face’s Facebook page, you pledge to take a kid out into nature. As of this writing there were 809 pledges. For instance,

Teach Camping 101 to Ingrid

Kayak with Juan

Trail Run with Brooke, etc.

The Facebook app has 20 default activities and 19 locations… ‘on a trail,’ ‘at a lake,’ ‘at a national park,’ etc. Make two mouse clicks, sign the pledge with your Facebook ID, and all you have to do is fulfill it.

Each time a Role Model makes a pledge or shares a photo/story, The North Face will donate $1 to the Children and Nature Network, an organization co-founded by Louv with a mission to reconnect kids with nature.

Participants in Role Models are entered to win free North Face gear.

The North Face has a stake in getting kids out-of-doors, of course. While the brand screams urban chic, it does so because it remains an authentic outdoor goods purveyor. If it loses cred on the mountain it also loses it on the street.

That said, while I like Role Models just fine, pledge campaigns always strike me as the least a sponsor could do. Pledge campaigns are like donuts; tasty and attractive, but filled with empty calories. That's because making a pledge online is super easy, but fulfilling it... i.e. changing behavior....is much harder.

In my view, pledge campaigns could benefit from a substantial dose of proven cognitive psychology. For instance, The North Face could emphasize that many people will help kids explore the outdoors this year, thereby drawing on the principle of social pressure.

Likewise, The North Face could ask several questions that help people think about exactly what they’ll be doing when they fulfill their pledge. For instance; ‘what do you think you’ll be doing before you pick up the kid to go to the out of doors?’ And, ‘where do you think you’ll be coming from when you pick the kid up?’

Research suggests that thinking through the specifics of an activity well before you start increases the likelihood that you’ll go through with it. So, too, would carefully-worded reminders on Facebook that would serve to help your subconscious think that you’re being monitored.

These are straightforward additions in Facebook that would increase the likelihood that the pledges get fulfilled.

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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