Cause Marketing

Yesterday Regal Entertainment announced the final tally of its August Straw Vote; Boys and Girls Clubs of America garnered $97,721 and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospitals collected $65,692. Regal also split another $320,000 between the two causes. In the promotion, which I highlighted on August 1 , Regal donated $0.50 for each medium or large frozen fruit drink sold during the month. The purchase of cherry drinks supported St. Jude. The purchase of all other flavors supported Boys and Girls Club. At the outset Regal capped the total donation to both causes at $600,000. But when all was said and done, Regal had donated $483,413 to the two causes. That suggests that Regal thought the promotion had more legs than it actually did. Because 2013 is not an election year in the United States, it’s unlikely that Regal will repeat it next year, at least in this format. But that would be a pity, in my view. Some things just take a while to catch on. Actor Alan Rickman didn’t get hi...

Americans have a big polarizing vote coming up soon and pundits have been weighing in with their opinions, informed and not. Much depends on what the nation’s voters pick; will they go for red or blue? Frozen fruit drinks, that is. Starting today at polling locations at 520 Regal Movie theaters in 37 states, when you buy a medium or large cherry frozen fruit drink, the company will make a $0.50 donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Buy a blue or any other color of frozen fruit drinks and Regal will donate $0.50 to Boys and Girls Club of America. The total donation to both causes is capped at $600,000. The promotion runs from Wednesday, August 1, 2012 to Friday, August 31, 2012. Weekly vote totals will be tracked on Regal’s Facebook site. Regular readers know that I generally dislike these kinds of competitions that pit charity against charity. Most Americans like to think that what Peter Drucker used to call the 'Social Sector' is just one big happy family ...

Kathy Ireland is raising money for Jewelers For Children through the sales of her eponymous jewelry line at Fred Meyer Jewelers, and I want to help this ageless paramour from my youth. If only I knew what Jewelers for Children was. Ronald McDonald House Charities helps support Ronald McDonald Houses, which are homes away from homes for families who have children in hospitals. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption helps enable adoptions. Target does a lot of work with St. Jude, which is a children’s research hospital in Memphis. J.C. Penney supports after-school programs at 4-H and Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Home Depot and Lowes help Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for people who need them. But Jewelers for Children I had to look up. It turns out to be a charity of the jewelry industry. Since its founding in 1999, it has donated more than $37 million to children’s charities, four of which… St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foun...

The winner of the 2011 World Series will be determined tonight at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. But four causes, recognized during the first four games of the Series, have already won the big spotlight that the Fall Classic brings. Those causes are: Welcome Back Veterans; the Roberto Clemente Award; Boys and Girls Clubs of America; and Stand Up to Cancer. Each was separately highlighted during the 2011 Series. This is no small thing. Game 2, for instance, had 14.69 million viewers . Not quite ‘Dancing With the Stars’ numbers, but respectable given the two teams playing for the Championship this year. The cause featured in Game 2 was the awarding of the 2011 Roberto Clemente Legacy award to David Ortiz, the designated hitter of the Boston Red Sox. The Roberto Clemente Award recognizes the MLB player who “best represents the game of baseball through positive contributions on and off the field.” That’s video of Ortiz being recognized before the start of the game at the left. There was a lit...

OK, you didn’t hear this from me. But if you want to get the boost that comes from partnering with a prominent national charity, but don’t want to jump through the hoops or pay their fat minimum fees, one work-around is to strike a deal with one of the national’s affiliates. Affiliates are not only smaller (read, easier to navigate) than the mother ship, they may be hungrier too, because they have fundraising targets that national foists on them every year. Best of all the local affiliate still carries the same name as the national. Let me be clear, this is NOT what Maytag is doing in this Facebook campaign . In fact, Maytag, a division of Whirlpool, pays the Boys and Girls Clubs of America… the national organization… $1.5 million a year through its Dependability Awards effort. Maytag’s campaign asks you to nominate a person in your life who personifies dependability, the company’s long-time unique selling proposition. Meanwhile on the Facebook nomination page, Maytag highlights volu...

J.C. Penney announced yesterday a campaign whereby they will ask customers to round-up their change to the nearest dollar and send the money to the retailer’s long-standing efforts on behalf of afterschool programs. The campaign is called ‘ Pennies From Heaven ’ and the goal is to generate 100 million pennies, or $1 million. Pennies is also selling a limited-edition change purse for $9.99 designed by Mark-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the twin sisters who were once primarily actors and now are primarily a brand. There’s also a Facebook component, a ringtone, and promotions with Foursquare and Twitter. As of this writing, the penny counter at http://jcpenneyafterschool.org/ says they’ve generated 130,711,075 pennies. J.C. Penney’s Afterschool Program primarily benefits The Boys and Girls Club of America, the Y, the United Way, FIRST, a science and technology nonprofit, and my old friends at 4-H. So how do I take credit for any of this? My post on March 25, 2008 was called, no kidding, ‘Penn...

FSIs or Free-Standing Inserts are those booklets of coupons mailed to your address or stuffed into your Sunday newspaper. They’ve been a hallmark of cause marketing almost from the very earliest days when much of cause marketing involved consumer packaged goods (CPG). For a time the use of FSIs to distribute coupons was declining, but they’ve surged again during the Great Recession, as has the average value of coupons. The cover of FSI at the left, sponsored by the British-Dutch CPG company Unilever, features the cause Boy’s and Girls Clubs of America. It dropped on May 17. My FSI had eight pages of Unilever coupons not counting the cover, along with at least that many more pages from non-Unilever products. Unilever, the body copy on the cover tells us, is donating $250,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of America. But that’s the full extent of the co-branding. Where’s the paragraph or two of explanation of all the valuable things Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) do for school-age ...

The rental car agency Avis , for years the perennial second banana to Hertz , used to promote itself with the tagline, “when you’re number two, you try harder.” Avis long since changed the slogan to “At Avis, We Try Harder.” The old tagline was advertising as a syllogism. It made an argument rather than just a declaration. The nonprofit featured in the ad to the left, After School All Stars is in Avis’s position and maybe even further back than that. The big dogs of after school programs are Boys and Girls Clubs of America , a federation of more than 4,000 clubs serving about 4 million boys and girls, and 4-H , with 90,000 clubs and 6.5 million members. After School All Stars is an after-school and summer program in 450 schools in 13 cities across the United States, with an especially strong showing in Chicago. It was founded by Arnold Schwarznegger in 1992 as the Inner-City Games Foundation and subsequently broadened its focus to include arts and academics in addition to health and f...

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 ...

Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty was launched in September 2004 on the heels of global study commissioned by Unilever called ‘The Real Truth about Beauty.’ Among the findings was that a scant 2 percent of all women defined themselves as beautiful. Better than 3/4th (81%) strongly agreed with the statement “The media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t achieve.” The Campaign for Real Beauty launched with an ad showing six ordinary woman (that is, non-models) flaunting their curves in white underwear. Many similar ads followed. It proved to be an influential campaign. In 2006 Spain outlawed overly thin models on runways. In 2009 Glamour not once but twice featured model Lizzi Miller, who at 5’11” 185lbs confidently sported a small paunch! The campaign continues, but to make best use of an existing relationship with the Girl Scouts of the USA , Unilever started the Dove Self Esteem Fund in 2006. The initial cause marketing effort was more PR than ma...

The other day a new friend asked, “Is there such a thing as cause marketing targeted at children?” Of course cause marketing to kids would be a conundrum. While 4 to12-year-olds influence at least $128 billion in household spending , perhaps 5 percent of that total is money kids can actually spend on their own. And influence is a fuzzy notion. In my household, for instance, my kids have never influenced me to buy the sugary cereals whose ads run in hot rotation on Nick Jr. , although I might ask them whether they prefer Oreos or Pepperidge Farm cookies. But I couldn’t think of any cause marketing targeted at children so I promised to consult Alden Keene’s voluminous database of cause marketing ads . I was slightly surprised to find the example above, which comes from the September 2007 SI Kids magazine . Above is the third page of a three-page ad for retailer JC Penney. The first two pages are in a double-truck configuration and feature NFL player and all-around good guy Michael Strah...

Faithful readers: The following is from my periodic column in the business weekly, the Salt Lake Enterprise . In it I profile how a fast-growing company and a innovative charity connected five years ago in a way that has greatly benefited both parties. Warm regards, Paul Since its founding a little more than five years ago, Ragnar Events LLC , which produces the super-sized Ragnar Relay Series, has sprinted to become the nation’s premier overnight relay race. And almost from the day Ragnar strung out its first yellow finish line, the company has had a charity partner, Salt Lake City, Utah-based Operation Kids . Headquartered in Kaysville, Utah, Ragnar owns and operates 10 relay races around the country in Arizona, Boston, Florida, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New York, Utah, Washington, D.C., and Washington State. (The picture above comes from Ragnar's Relay Del Sol race, which takes place in Arizona.) The races typically cover 200 miles. Teams of 12, sometimes dressed in ...

Cause Branding® Made Easy Years ago Carolyn Cone and her eponymous Boston agency Cone, Inc ., started using the term “Cause Branding®:” branding cause marketing, as it were. I don’t think she or Cone, Inc. had anything to do with Staples Easy Button campaign . If not, then at least Staples owes a debt of gratitude to Carol Cone because this campaign is a fine example of Cause Branding®. In the States there are three national office supply superstores: Staples, Office Depot and the much smaller OfficeMax. Staples invented the business model and remains the largest company as well as the class of the bunch. Its stock has outperformed its competitors… as well as the broader stock market… and its growth prospects are superior. Staples has countless other competitors including wholesalers and regional and local suppliers and stores. It’s a crowded marketplace, in other words. So Staples began to do what any self-respecting marketing-driven company would do, they begin to brand themselves ...

Circuit City-Mary J. Blige Duet Album for Boys and Girls Clubs of America Throughout November 2006, Circuit City diligently promoted its exclusive deal with Hip Hop Soul artist Mary J. Blige called Mary J. Blige & Friends that benefits the Boys and Girls Clubs of America in commemoration of their centennial year. The recording features the appealing Blige in duets with an impressive array of artists include Sting, LL Cool J, Jamie Foxx, Elton John, Santana, and others. Given the season, you’d expect this to be a charity Christmas album. But it’s not. Evidence, I think, of the creativity of the dealmakers at Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The offer is straightforward. The album is ‘specially-priced’ at $16.99 for a two-disk set, and “all proceeds benefit Boys and Girls Clubs of America.” I’m almost always critical of the ‘proceeds’ language as being too vague to be helpful. The last research I saw on this said that consumers prefer more concrete language. But I’m not here to criti...