Using Cause Marketing to Help Expand a Regional Brand

Cheerwine, an extra-bubbly cherry-flavored soft drink bottled in Salisbury, North Carolina, is distributed to a relatively small portion of the United States, but is working towards national distribution in time for its 100th anniversary in 2017.

So how to prepare markets outside of the Southeast for a national roll-out in five years?

Part of Cheerwine’s answer is a cause marketing campaign called Avett Brother’s Cheerwine Legendary Giveback Concert, which takes place on Oct. 19, 2012 in Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s a benefit concert for Operation Homefront, a charity for the families of military families, Big Brothers and Big Sisters and the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital in Charlottesville.

The Avett Brothers is an indie rock band with a cool bluegrass-country-pop-punk-honky-tonk sound.

The amount of money a benefit concert can raise is necessarily limited by the size of the venue, how much can be charged for tickets, sponsorships, and merchandising, and what the production expenses are.

But part of Cheerwine’s goal is to get the word out. So the company has expanded the promotion by asking people to pledge volunteer time to causes in local markets. When make a pledge via Facebook or on Cheerwine’s website, the company will send out a special code to watch the show online.

In addition, ten fans from the town that pledges the most volunteer service will get a special viewing event the night of the concert. The details are a little sketchy, but you gotta assume that means food and plenty of Cheerwine.

I like this promotion and am interested in trying the product. But I wonder why there’s only one of these parties. Why not offer a special viewing party to the individual that pledges the most time? Why not break out several categories by region? Cheerwine enjoys cult status on several college campuses, so why not several college categories?

Ten more of these special viewing parties, with the accompanying Cheerwine, would help spread the brand and the news of the benefit concert.

Comments

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

Why Even Absurd Cause-Related Marketing Has its Place

Buy a Bikini, Help Cure Cancer New York City (small-d) fashion designer Shoshonna Lonstein Gruss may have one of the more absurd cause-related marketing campaigns I’ve come across lately. When you buy the bikini or girls one-piece swimsuit at Bergdorf-Goodman in New York shown at the left all sales “proceeds” benefit Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center . Look past the weak ‘ proceeds ’ language, which I always decry, and think for a moment about the incongruities of the sales of swimsuits benefiting the legendary Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Cancer has nothing to do swimming or swimsuits or summering in The Hamptons for that matter. And it’s not clear from her website why Shoshanna, the comely lass who once adorned the arm of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, has chosen the esteemed cancer center to bestow her gifts, although a web search shows that she’s supported its events for years. Lesser critics would say that the ridiculousness of it all is a sign that cause-related marketing is

A Clever Cause Marketing Campaign from Snickers and Feeding America

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog