Pink Ribbon Cause Marketing for the Fisher-Woman

To find notable pink ribbon cause marketing to profile this month, I’ll bet I’ve looked at 150 different efforts for various nail polishes, shampoos, makeup, and perfumes, plus every kind of gew-gaw that can be be-sparkled, bejeweled and be-spangled in every pink tone. And, fear not, more is coming until I shut down this special month-long pink ribbon edition of the blog on October 31.

But as a palate-cleanser, if you will, check out this effort from Emotion Kayaks. Emotion makes well-priced HPDE paddle boats and kayaks, both the sit-inside kind and the sit on top variety. Emotion is a brand from Lifetime Products, whose lightweight… and, again, well-priced… HPDE and steel fold-up tables have been in my home for at least 15 years.

When you buy the pink Emotion Glide Angler, a sit-inside kayak with two fly rod holders, for $550, Lifetime will donate $25 to Casting for Recovery, a pink ribbon charity founded in 1996 that I’m only just learning about.

Casting for Recovery, headquartered in Manchester, Vermont, puts together no-cost 2½ day retreats across the country for groups of 14 women with breast cancer. They teach them fly fishing in outdoor settings and offer a forum in which to forge new relationships. In my market, the retreats are held at a handsome little 100-year-old resort that sits within a few miles of a blue-ribbon trout stream.

Participants are chosen through an application process.

I love the name Casting for Recovery. Many of the verbs in pink ribbon cause marketing have a take-charge edge: ‘Run for the Cure;’ ‘Battle for a Cure;’ ‘Romp a Stomp;’ ‘Bulldog for the Cure;’ ‘Bludgeon for the Cure.’ OK, I made up those last two, but you take my point.

Of course we all want and expect a cure to breast cancer. And when it doesn’t come in as timely a fashion as want, we point fingers. But every woman navigates the breast cancer maze in her own way. And breast cancer militancy of the sort served up by many of the pink ribbon charities isn’t for every woman with breast cancer.

Fly fishing isn’t about swatting the fish out of the water mama grizzly bear style. Fly fishing… and for many women, surviving breast cancer… is about making good choices at good times.

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