Smart Cause Marketing from a Leading MMA Company

Torque MMA, a supplier of apparel and mats to the mixed martial arts community, has developed a three-part cause marketing promotion that may be exactly what the doctor ordered for cause marketers everywhere.

In the past, I’ve been critical of cause marketing efforts that front-load all their promotional efforts. In May 2012 I wrote about a cause marketing promotion benefiting The Prostate Cancer Charity from UK retailer Marks & Spencer and which sold underwear endorsed by prominent UK sportsmen. Later, as the cause cooled and the merchandise grew stale, Marks & Spencer begin to discount the underwear in stores and online.

Here’s what I wrote:

In a case like this where there’s a celebrity component, here’s a thought; hold back some of the promotion for later. Promotions… cause marketing and otherwise… tend to be front-loaded and rightfully so. You have to develop the momentum to see you through the promotion and the best way to do that is to go as big as you can right from the get-go.

But the celebrity aspect of this promotion affords Marks & Spencer and The Prostate Cancer Charity an extra arrow in the promotional quiver. Imagine offering up some bragging right to the celebrity whose underwear line sells out first. A press release. A billboard campaign. Facebook bragging rights. Whatever. Then get creative with any of the celebrities whose competitive pride won’t let them finish sixth.

Imagine, for instance, if right before Marks & Spencer was prepared to start discounting, the ‘Fun Bus’ Jason Leonard, started autographing the boxes of his line of Kelly green-colored underwear. Maybe he signs 200 boxes. I’ve watched American baseball players sign 200 baseballs plus another 200 baseball cards in one sitting. So signing 200 underwear boxes wouldn’t be terribly onerous. But instead of offering them first-come, first-served they go randomly to anybody who has paid the full £15.

Or maybe Jamie Redknapp, who along with his wife Louise represent a kind of beer-budget version of David and Victoria (Posh Spice) Beckham, could be part of some kind sweepstakes for a personal appearance. Again, this element of the promotion would only be triggered when Marks & Spencer’s usual metrics told them to start discounting.

Torque MMA’s promotion is in concert with Orange County Chopper, of cable-TV fame, and the cause Operation Gratitude, which sends ‘care’ packages to American military servicemen and women stationed overseas. Here’s how it works.

In 2012 Operation Gratitude will ship its 800,000th care package overseas. On June 15, 2012 and American general was at the Operation Gratitude assembly line in Van Nuys, California for the 800,000th package. Inside that package they put a letter and a set of keys to a custom chopper being created by Orange County Chopper. Since Torque is funding the chopper, I suspect some of their branding will be included on it. (At left is a motorcycle that OCC did for Intel).

That package will go overseas in time for Christmas 2012. At which point some lucky serviceman or woman will open up their Operation Gratitude package and out will fall a set of keys that fit a custom Orange County Chopper.

The promotion, therefore, gives Torque at least three separate and legitimate opportunities to tell its story:

At the launch when the keys are put into the package

On the American Choppers series which airs on the Discovery Channel

When the serviceman or women is awarded their chopper

Smart. Smart. Smart.

Top Eight Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns of 2007

Yeah, You Read it Right. It's a Top 8 List.

More cause-related marketing campaigns are unveiled every day across the world than I review in a year at the cause-related marketing blog. And, frankly, I don’t see very many campaigns from outside North America. So I won’t pretend that my annual list of the top cause-related marketing campaigns is exhaustive.

But, like any other self-respecting blogger, I won’t let my superficial purview stop me from drawing my own tortured conclusions!

So… cue the drumroll (and the dismissive snickers)… without further ado, here is my list of the eight best cause-related marketing campaigns of 2007.

My list of the worst cause-related marketing campaigns of 2007 follows on Thursday.

Chilis and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
I was delighted by the scope of Chilis’ campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As you walked in you saw the servers adorned in black co-branded shirts. Other elements included message points on the Chilis beverage coas…

Cause-Related Marketing Meets Microfinance

Kiva.org and Advanta.com Mix it Up

You’d have had to have been in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia the last year or so to have missed the run up of microfinance. Between 2004 and 2006 more than $4 billion of capital flowed into microfinance institutions. All told experts say the total loan microfinance loan portfolio may be as much as $12.5 billion. And of course the father of microfinance, Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Microfinance is now so respectable, so effective, (so profitable!) that it’s already enjoying its first global backlash.

Actually that first sentence is hyperbole. Because even in Ulaanbaatar… far from almost anywhere on the vast, frigid steppes of Mongolia… microfinance is thriving such that the earliest recipients of micro loans there are now complaining about taxes and government bureaucracy! And May 29-31, 2008 the Conference of Microfinance Institutions will convene in Ulaanbaatar, the eleventh such annual conference.
Now Advanta, a credit card issuer to small…

Cause Marketing Beer with BOGO, Brew One Give One

On Monday’s post I touched on the topic of telling people what your cause marketing campaign accomplished when completed. I’ve recommended this approach to clients as a way to keep open the lines of communication with customers and clients and to get extra value from the campaign.

In other words, you’ll want to hold back some of the promotion’s budget to continue to activate the effort until the very end.

But what if that really cuts across the grain in your organization? What if it’s just not in your corporate DNA to do anything but to frontload your cause marketing activation? Well, then, add the report back to the activation of your next cause marketing effort.

New Belgium Brewing of Ft. Collins, Colorado, said to be the seventh largest brewery in the United States, did just that with this ad in Sunset magazine. I found this ad in the Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database.

New Belgium donates $1 for every barrel it brews and sells. It’s a BOGO cause marketing effort, Buy One Give One. …

Cause Marketing

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