Cause Marketing Beer with BOGO, Brew One Give One

On Monday’s post I touched on the topic of telling people what your cause marketing campaign accomplished when completed. I’ve recommended this approach to clients as a way to keep open the lines of communication with customers and clients and to get extra value from the campaign.

In other words, you’ll want to hold back some of the promotion’s budget to continue to activate the effort until the very end.

But what if that really cuts across the grain in your organization? What if it’s just not in your corporate DNA to do anything but to frontload your cause marketing activation? Well, then, add the report back to the activation of your next cause marketing effort.

New Belgium Brewing of Ft. Collins, Colorado, said to be the seventh largest brewery in the United States, did just that with this ad in Sunset magazine. I found this ad in the Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database.

New Belgium donates $1 for every barrel it brews and sells. It’s a BOGO cause marketing effort, Buy One Give One. (Although in New Belgium’s case it could be Brew One, Give One). From 1995 to November 2011 when the ad dropped, the company had “donated more than $4 million to good causes,” we’re told.

But New Belgium was doing more than reporting their good corporate citizenship. With this ad, New Belgium added a wrinkle. When you bought a New Belgium glassware gift pack, you got to choose the cause. The ad, therefore, serves two masters; promoting the company’s corporate giving ethic and selling its branded glassware near the Christmas giving season.

Thereby New Belgium not only reported back on their corporate generosity, they activated a new cause marketing promotion.

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