Cause Marketing Valentine's Day

It’s Valentine’s Day, a natural reminder that it's time to get rid of the evidence of someone you once 'liked.'

After all, there's your ex in every other post on your Facebook wall and scattered all throughout your timeline.

What do you do after you’ve moved on but the evidence of your past likes remain? Well, back in the day, Stalin had an army of skilled photo retouchers to call upon when someone fell out of favor. (See some of their handiwork at left)

Today a cheeky New York digital agency named ClearHart launches a new mobile app that will remove all evidence of your ex from your Facebook page faster than you can say ‘Stalinist Purge.’ And 20 percent of the sales of the app benefit the American Heart Association of New York, up to $5,000

Called KillSwitch, the app deletes pictures, videos, and wall posts, and unlikes status updates.

“KillSwitch is not a vindictive tool, so much as an answer to a very natural, pre-existing human behavior,” says ClearHart Co- Founder, Clara de Soto. “After all, how many movies have you seen of people throwing stuff out or burning pictures post‐breakup?... KillSwitch is just the digital age’s version of that.”

Yeah, but isn’t the cause marketing component just a way to pay off the joke? I put that question directly to Joseph Pineda, whose PR agency, the Carmelita Group, is handling the launch.

“We had a few ideas of charitable partners,” he said, “but picked American Heart Association of NY for a few reasons. It was obviously a great fit for Valentine's Day and the ‘heartbreak’ tie in--but also because it is local to NY (where ClearHart is based) and when we spoke to them they were just a great bunch, and we totally fell in love with them and their mission. February is also ‘Heart Month.’”

Fun!

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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...

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...

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...

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