Nightmare Cause Marketing Scenario

Imagine that a sponsor and a cause engage in a sincere and well-meant cause marketing activity and out of carelessness they word the offer poorly in the activation materials. Perhaps the amount being donated is really oblique or seems to suggest something that isn’t true. And then some enterprising attorney launches lawsuit and he or she finds a sympathetic judge to certify it as a class-action.

This very scenario came up in a discussion group at the Cause Academy convocation last week in Scottsdale, Arizona. On this topic, we concluded two things as a group:

That it will probably happen in the near future
That it will have the effect of ensuring that cause marketers everywhere make their campaigns more transparent

In my view, it will also have a chilling effect on cause marketing as a whole.

Here’s why: Some of the biggest charities, names we all know, are sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in reserve. There are many legitimate reasons why nonprofits keep money in reserve. But it doesn’t take much imagination to suppose that our enterprising attorney looks at the charity’s 990 and decides that the cause has plenty of money and so adds it to the list of those also named in the suit. It might not hold up in court. But by then the cause has had to defend itself in two courts, one of them being the court of public opinion.

The result will be causes that look at the risks and decide not engage in cause marketing. It’s a darn-sight less risky to just ask for gifts from companies rather than hassle with commercial co-venturing laws.

The first part of scenario has already happened. Lady Gaga was sued in 2011 when 1-800-Law-Firm decided that the expenses for her wristband effort on behalf of tsunami relief in Japan were too high. “I’m suing Lady Gaga simply to hold her accountable for giving the money that she was raising for charity to the cause that she was trying to raise it for,” 1-800-LAW-FIRM attorney, Ari Kresch, told Radar Online.

You don’t have to read much of the Cause Marketing Blog to know where I stand on issues like cause marketing campaign transparency. But this is something that cause marketers should be self-policing.

Otherwise, heaven save us from self-righteous lawyers in high dudgeon.

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...

Cause-Related Marketing with Customer Receipts

Walgreens and JDRF Right now at Walgreens…the giant pharmacy and retail store chain with more than 5,800 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico… they’re selling $1 paper icons for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). This is an annual campaign and I bought one to gauge how it’s changed over the years. (Short list… they don’t do the shoe as a die cut anymore; the paper icon is now an 8¾ x 4¼ rectangle. Another interesting change; one side is now in Spanish). The icon has a bar code and Jacob, the clerk, scanned it and handed me a receipt as we finished the transaction. At the bottom was an 800-number keyed to a customer satisfaction survey. Dial the number, answer some questions and you’re entered into a drawing for $10,000 between now and the end of September 2007. I don’t know what their response rate is, but the $10,000 amount suggests that it’s pretty low. Taco Bell’s survey gives out $1,000 per week. At a regional seafood restaurant they give me a code that garner...

An Interview with Cause-Related Marketing Pioneer Jerry Welsh

Jerry Welsh is the closest thing cause marketing has to a father. In 1983 after a number of regional cause-related marketing efforts, Welsh, who was then executive vice president of worldwide marketing and communications at American Express looked out his window in lower Manhattan at the Statue of Liberty. The Statue was then undergoing a major refurnishing, and in a flash Welsh determined to undertake the first modern national cause marketing campaign. I say modern because almost 100 years before in January 1885, the Statue of Liberty was sitting around in crates in New York warehouses because the organization building the pedestal ran out of money. And so Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher of the newspaper called The World , proposed a very grassroots solution reminiscent in its own way to Welsh’s cause-related marketing. Pulitzer ran an editorial promising he would print the name of everyone who donated even a penny. Sure enough pennies, along with dimes and nickels, quarters a...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog