Cause Marketing

In the lead up to the eagerly-anticipated Social Media Week in New York City later this month, Lisa Chau interviewed Mike Hemingway , who helped create the Dove Real Beauty campaign while at Olgivy & Mather. Chau asked Hemingway the following: “Why doesn’t cause marketing work?” Work at what? Moving product? Increasing profits? Providing a meaningful source of unrestricted cash to nonprofits? Taking garbage questions like this out to the back alley and shooting them? As a practice, cause marketing has been grown faster than the rate of inflation for 20 years. Companies like General Mills, Campbell’s, and even Subaru have made cause marketing a centerpiece of their marketing strategy for years. In survey after survey, people from every demographic… even those who have complaints with cause marketing…would like to see more it. And, never mind that Hemingway’s brainchild… Dove Real Beauty… is a flavor of cause marketing. Here’s Hemingway’s response: “Cause marketing works in term...

Out now is the thirtieth anniversary issue of the Forbes 400 , a listing of the wealthiest 400 Americans. While the 29 previous editions have regaled us with stories of vast wealth, how it was earned (or inherited) and how it was spent (or lost), the 2012 issue is mainly about how it is given away to charity. But even before I got my copy, over the last few years it’s become apparent to me that the zeitgeist of day is that billionaires must now give away a substantial portion of their wealth to causes. It hasn’t always been thus. The last time that America’s wealthiest cared so much about giving away their money was the last time that Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were in the same room together. Carnegie almost single-handedly put a library in ever community of any size across North America and the English Commonwealth. Rockefeller gave America Colonial Williamsburg, the Grand Tetons National Park, the University of Chicago, and cures for yellow fever and hookworm. Notwiths...