Cause Marketing When You Can't Use the Phrase 'Super Bowl'

With National Breast Cancer Awareness Month behind us, is not too soon to start talking about cause marketing and the next big holiday coming up, namely Super Bowl 2013.

Rudolph Foods, which bills itself as the world’s largest manufacturer of pork rinds is celebrating Pork Rind Appreciation Day on Super Bowl Sunday, with a modest cause marketing campaign that features an oversized ambition. When you buy a package of Rudolph pork rinds, the company will make a $0.10 donation to Gridiron Greats, a nonprofit that provides medical and financial help to former NFL players and their families in dire need. The modest part is that the donation is capped at $10,000. That needs to be a bigger number.

But I very much admire Rudolph Food’s ambition. Snack foods are a big part of the Super Bowl. But you could chew your way through a lot of advertising dollars trying to keep pace with the likes of Frito-Lay, the $13 billion snack foods division of PepsiCo. Heck, in its press releases Rudolph can’t ever use the phrase Super Bowl. To do that you either have to be a media outlet like yours truly or an NFL/Super Bowl sponsor.

In a 2011 article, Bloomberg Businessweek put Rudolph’s sales at around $100 million. Moreover, Rudolph has a complicated relationship with Frito-lay because it makes the snack company’s pork rind product Baken-ets under contract. Businessweek says that roughly half of Rudolph’s sales are to Frito-Lay.

In short, even if it had deeper pockets, it would be challenging for Rudolph to go head to head with Frito-Lay in straight up advertising. Pork Rind Appreciation Day, with its accompanying Facebook component and a contest to win a Super Bowl Party for 25 people with a new 50” plasma TV, is a way to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

This promotion is meant to get into the Super Bowl conversation without paying for $3 million ads. Pork Rind Appreciation Day is a good start, but I think they need to get more guerilla in a way that respects and honors their cause partner.

Super Bowl XLVII will be played in the Superdome in New Orleans. So imagine a party in the French Quarter or the Garden District or even one of those big hotels on Canal Street filled with former players who are or have been helped by Gridiron Greats.

The point of the party for Rudolph Foods would be to help these former players tell their stories… some of which will be quite sad… reminding the media and fans of their legacies, as well as their current needs.

Naturally, the party would be filled with low-carb Rudolph pork rind products.

Comments

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...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog