Cause Marketing Jewelry that is the Bomb

Some 37 years after the end of the Cambodian civil war, landmines left by the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese and unexploded ordnance from the Americans still shroud the landscape. Wikipedia says that it will take a decade more to remove the majority of it. Like a monster with long arms, the mines and unexploded ordnance (called UXO) of long-past wars regularly reaches forward in time to kill and maim Cambodians today.

If placing landmines or dropping ordnance is easy, clearing minefields is laborious, expensive, and dangerous.

Taking a role in this complicated dynamic is Saught, a social enterprise based Singapore that buys the metal left behind by landmines and UXO and helps to support the training of Cambodians artisans to create jewelry which Saught sells on its website.

At left is the “Laurels of Us” necklace, which features streamlined doves and olive branches and was designed by Song Lin. The necklace sells for $129.90, which is on the high end of Saught’s offerings.

Saught is a cause, but it’s not a charity; it’s a social enterprise. With its efforts in Cambodia, Saught's goal is to create a sustainable model that can be exported to other post-conflict countries. Saught works with existing organizations in Cambodia to acquire the raw materials and then turn them into desirable jewelry.

The metals come from the Cambodia Mine Action Centre in Phnom Penh, which has a staff of 2400. By itself that number gives you a sense of the size of the problem in Cambodia, which is around 181,000 square kilometers (69,900 square miles), about the same size as the U.S. State of Missouri. But Missouri has 6 million citizens, while Cambodia has 15 million. Cambodia’s population density means time is of the essence in removing mines and UXO. CMAC actively demines Cambodia and educates Cambodians on the dangers posed by mines and UXO.

Much of the jewelry comes from the Fileo Development Organisation. Fileo is an Italian NGO that teaches young Cambodians the skills of Italian style jewelry making. Saught’s other main supplier is another NGO called Rajana Association, which also teaches Cambodians jewelry and other craft making.

I love these kinds of enterprises. Who wouldn’t be taken in just the back story alone? I’ve got a sister-in-law who can’t resist this kind of stuff, so she may find something from Saught under the tree come Christmas time. But Saught’s long-term prospects depend entirely on how well it markets its products.

The obvious bears repeating, no social enterprise is sustainable… no matter how cool… if you fail to sell the stuff produced by it.

Comments

Part 2: How Chili's Used Cause-Related Marketing to Raise $8.2 million for St. Jude

[Bloggers Note: In this second half of this post I discuss the nuts and bolts of how Chili's motivates support from its employees and managers and how St. Jude 'activates' support from Chili's. Read the first half here.] How does St. Jude motivate support from Chili’s front line employees and management alike? They call it ‘activation’ and they do so by the following: They share stories of St. Jude patients who were sick and got better thanks to the services they received at the hospital. Two stories in particular are personal for Chili’s staff. A Chili’s bartender in El Dorado Hills, California named Jeff Eagles has a younger brother who was treated at St. Jude. In both 2005 and 2006 Eagles was the campaign’s biggest individual fundraiser. John Griffin, a manager at the Chili’s in Conway, Arkansas had an infant daughter who was treated for retinoblastoma at St. Jude. They drew on the support Doug Brooks… the president and CEO of Brinker International, Chili’s parent co...

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...

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