Gambling With Your Pink Ribbon Cause Marketing

It’s older than bingo in the basement of the local parish and, if you get the offer right, an all-but-certain money raiser. Except that adding gambling to your pink ribbon cause marketing promotion is also almost certainly a mistake.

This post was prompted by a raffle… the mildest of games of chance… that took place at Longevity Pilates in Verona, New Jersey. Raffle tickets were $2… six tickets for $10…and the prize was 1 private session or three group classes with the studio’s Pilates teacher of choice. Proceeds went to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The campaign was conducted in tribute to Nancy Contey, the daughter of a longstanding Longevity Pilates client who had lost her fight with breast cancer at age 46.

How is any of this a mistake, you ask? Well, let’s start with some definitions courtesy of Wikipedia:

“A game of chance is a game whose outcome is strongly influenced by some randomizing device, and upon which contestants may or may not wager money or anything of monetary value. Common devices used include dice, spinning tops, playing cards, roulette wheels or numbered balls drawn from a container. A game of chance may have some skill element to it, however, chance generally plays a greater role in determining the outcome than skill. A game of skill, on the other hand, also has an element of chance, but with skill playing a greater role in determining the outcome.”

“Any game of chance that involves anything of monetary value is gambling.”

So, because the Pilates lessons have a monetary value the campaign represents a form of gambling. In my state bingo and raffles like this one are illegal, even for charities.

Fine for me and my state, you say, but a promotion like this would be super-easy to trigger at the local level where it is legal and probably effective.

Nonetheless, there are reasons not to.

We all know the downsides of gambling for individuals; financial insecurity, legal troubles, employment difficulties, even a higher risk for suicide.

For society as a whole the negatives are equally pronounced; political corruption tends to dog gambling wherever it is active, the number of ‘pathological’ gamblers increases wherever gambling takes hold, and, notwithstanding the promises going in about the use of gambling revenue, there’s currently a strong correlation between state budget deficits and states that have casinos, notably Illinois, California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.

But there are risks for brands, too. Gambling… even in mild forms… represents taking without giving real value in return. And if you sell a product or provide a service for a fee, you can hardly want to encourage that kind of thinking. Even a state lottery tells people that that they don’t have work hard, be thrifty, or improve themselves. They just have to pick the right numbers. The addition of the cause tends to take the sting out of gambling. But, of course, it is still gambling. Warren Buffet calls Gambling is a “tax on ignorance,” because only the ‘house’ reliably wins. For these reasons you hardly ever see mainstream companies actively co-brand with gambling companies. To do so would be hazardous to the mainstream brand.

Then there is this. Did they participate in your cause marketing campaign because of the cause or because of the game of chance? If you don’t know which, how do you improve the effort for the next time?

I actively discourage you from using gambling in your cause marketing efforts.

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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