When a $1 Cause Marketing Donation is Not Enough

Movers Specialty Service, which relocates things and people, including military families, has been doing a little cause marketing since 2012 on behalf of the Travis Manion Foundation and the Wounded Warrior Project. And such a deal they have for you!

Whenever they relocate any member of the military or engage in a “third party assignment” they’ll donate $1 to be split in some percentage between those two causes, according to a press release issued March 23, 2013.

Imagine that, one whole dollar.

I have never engaged a service like Movers Specialty Service, but I did once rent a 32’ truck from an agency, filled it up with the help of friends and loved ones and drove it 1,800 miles cross-country with my esposa. Between gas and the rental fee, I spent right around $2,700, not including incidentals like hotel stays and meals.

When I moved back, I had a different company drop off an empty trailer, which I loaded with the help of friends and family, and which the trucking company hauled back across country. That cost about $1,800.

But Movers Specialty Service actually sends someone to pack your stuff for you, then they ship it to your destination, and then someone there unloads it and unpacks it. I suspect that they charge more than $2,700 for this kind of white-glove service, even if you’re only going a few hundred miles.

And for that, MSS…as they refer to themselves…can somehow break $1 loose from their fee for two charities that represent a key part of their constituency.

Now MSS performs its service using subcontractors who actually do all that hand labor. MSS is a middleman. So they might respond that their piece of a relocation contract is actually rather modest. Yeah, and so too are their costs, since it is subcontractors that are doing all the work, not MSS employees.

$1 is not enough for a cause marketing campaign like this.

Comments

Megan Keane said…

Thank you for this post! I see this type of thing all the time and find myself scratching my head. When you break it down, it's easy to see where the return is often not worth it.

3/26/2013 1:09 PM

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