Cause Marketing

When you buy a bottle of Avon’s Pink Power Pro Nail Enamel, 100% of the profits go to Avon Breast Cancer Crusade. Avon sells the product for $3 a bottle. Since 1992, the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade under the aegis of the Avon Foundation has generated more than $740 million, an astonishing number by any measure. Given Avon’s bona fides, I wonder why it bothers with the 100% of profits model for this product? Why not just follow MAC Viva Glam lipsticks and glosses lead and give 100% of sales of this product to Avon Breast Cancer Crusade? Why would they want to? After all, such efforts include not only the cost of the donation, but the cost of the product along with the cost of distribution, which in Avon’s case would certainly include commissions to the Avon ladies. A $3 donation would probably cost Avon something north of $4 per bottle. The short answer is those Avon ladies need all the sales arrows in their quiver that they can get. They need a low-threat way to talk about Avon produc...

The direct sales business… think Amway, Avon, and Shaklee… has a demographics problem, namely attracting the next generation of sales reps. Avon has addressed the challenge by launching Mark , which targets 18-30 year olds with bright, fun, less expensive products than Avon’s mainstream line and sold by youthful reps using a heavy dose of social media. Mark has proven to be a good extension for Avon. A January 2010 story in the New York Times on Mark put annual sales at $70 million and numbered sales reps at around 40,000 in North America. Like Avon, Mark has a cause attached to it. But, as I’ve demonstrated before in this space , in the United States breast cancer, Avon’s signature cause, is pretty rare for women under age 30. So Mark chose domestic violence instead. Its own charity, called m.powerment, donates to causes working to end domestic violence. In the iteration at the left, when you buy the necklace worn by Twilight star Ashley Greene, proceeds benefit m.powerment and its...

The direct selling industry in the United States… think Amway, Avon, Mary Kay… was a $28.33 billion business in 2009, although the more interesting number may be the 16.1 million salespeople involved in direct sales. Philanthropically Avon and Mary Kay both are strongly… although not exclusively… involved with women’s issues. So who does Amway support with its philanthropy and cause marketing? The short answer is children and children’s charities. But there’s more to it than that. By itself Amway has 3 million Independent Business Owners (IBOs) and operations in 80 countries. Suffice it to say that just writing a check to the local children’s hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan where Amway is headquartered… which Amway’s founders have done in a big way… isn’t entirely satisfying for the IBO in Japan or Singapore or even Canada. Amway Global, ironically the North American affiliate of Amway Corp., mainly spreads its charitable dollars to three causes: Boys and Girls Clubs of America ...