Cause Marketing Miscellanea

Three different cause marketing efforts worth calling your attention to.

On Friday, Nov. 16 participating Menchies will donate 10 percent of sales to the American Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy relief. Menchies is a self-serve frozen yogurt chain with about 230 locations across the globe.

“Like the rest of the nation, we are deeply moved and feel we have a responsibility to be supportive in helping those impacted by the devastation Hurricane Sandy caused,” said Amit Kleinberger, CEO of Menchie's Group Inc in a press release.

The campaign is activated via in-store promotional materials and public relations.

Somali-born fashion model Ubah Hassan (that’s her at the left) and a partner have launched a line of umbrellas called Maji that generate a donation sufficient to provide water for 20 people in the Horn of Africa, a drought-torn region that includes Somalia.

The umbrellas, in silver/black and blue/gold, are $40 at the Maji website. The charity partner is Oxfam America.

The campaign is activated via PR, notably through interviews with the lovely Miss Hassan. (How is that Somalia turns out so many beautiful models?) I learned about the campaign thanks to Polina Hoering, who commented on my Media Post column this month. So, thanks to Polina for the heads up.

On Monday, Nov. 12, when you placed a qualifying online order with Queensboro, the company made a $3 donation to the Wounded Warrior Project, in honor of Veteran’s Day.

Queensboro Shirt Company is a Wilmington, North Carolina-based promotional products company with a special emphasis on apparel.

The campaign was activated via the company’s online promotional efforts.

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

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