Cause Marketing

Back in August I wrote about something I termed ‘ open source cause-related marketing .’ In it I described how “in effect General Mills had opened up the ‘source code’ to non-competing brands” to its well-executed Boxtops for Education campaign. With Breast Cancer Awareness Month in full flower in the United States, it’s apparent that there’s a second kind of open source cause marketing going on… ‘open-source charity icons.’ I’ve written skeptically about charities using colored ribbons ; some colors of ribbon are somehow meant to represent five or more different causes. But the ne plus ultra of colored ribbons in the U.S. is the pink ribbon, which signifies breast cancer awareness. That kind of brand awareness is enormously valuable. And yet a cursory glance at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office suggests that no one has registered pink ribbons. Oh, Susan G. Komen has trademarked the terms ‘pink ribbon regatta,’ ‘pink ribbon golf tourney,’ and ‘pink ribbon celebration.’ And the Nati...