Picking Your Cause Marketing Partner

So how should a corporate sponsor go about sniffing out a cause marketing partner?

There are several… oftentimes opposing… schools of thought on the subject.

One is that you should pick causes that have some sort of link to your business. For instance, a food business should pick a food charity.

Why? So that your customers prospects don’t have to spend too much cognitive energy figuring out what the link is between the two organizations. Because customers just won’t do it. If it doesn’t make sense, they’re not going to pull out their phones to Google the question ‘Why does Acme Axel Manufacturing Company sponsor bone cancer research?’ Instead, it will seem like 'cause-nitive dissonance' and they’ll just ignore it.

The opposing view holds that customers see such links as cynical. In this view, a Consumer Packaged Goods that makes canned spaghetti sauce and links up with a network food bank network during the Christmas season is plainly just playing on their customer's emotions.

Certainly there are plenty of sponsors who really don’t care that much about the cause. They find a charity that can fill their requirements for a one-time promotion and move along to another cause after that.

In my view, there’s nothing terribly wrong with that so long as both parties know going into the relationship that it’s a hook-up and not a partnership.

But the ideal would be to only link with causes for which the sponsor has some kind of special passion, affection, or zeal. Because their customers could sense the genuineness and authenticity of the company’s commitment.

These thoughts occurred to me after reading a press release about a UK waste management company called Waste King that recently gave 30 percent of one day’s profit to the UK charity Medical Detection Dogs. That's one of their dogs on the left.

Medical Detection Dogs are dogs that are trained to sense and alert their owners to medical conditions like low-blood sugar, diabetes, narcolepsy, seizures and, perhaps, even cancer.

The cause of Medical Detection Dogs strikes me as being very marketable. Indeed, Leslie Nicol, who plays Mrs. Patmore on the hit TV series Downton Abbey, has just signed on as one of the charity’s ambassadors. But it nonetheless seems like a rather random choice for a waste management company.

In other words, Waste King’s donation could be an example of any of the above. It could be a cynical link-up driven by the appeal of the cause and the celebrity. It could that one or more people and Waste King had a genuine commitment to Medical Detection Dogs based on personal experience. Or it could be just a head-scratcher of a cause marketing campaign that crop up from time to time.

A small hint is provided by a quote in the press release.

“We believe that the charity is not only doing valuable practical work in helping people with existing conditions to keep those conditions from being life threatening but it’s also involved in important research work," says Glen Curie, managing director of Waste King. “This research could result in saving the NHS a great deal of time and money because of the early detection of medical conditions.”

“We’ve wanted to do something to help Medical Detection Dogs for some time – and we’re pleased that we’ve now found a practical and effective way to do so,” he added.

Here’s the take-home lesson: If your company has an odd choice for a charity partner and if there are specific reasons for your commitment, you should take pains to explain where that commitment comes from in the press release, on your website and in any other media where you activate your sponsorship.

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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