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.

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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

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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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