Cause Marketing

Every business day in this blog I chronicle the best and worst of cause marketing. As you seek inspiration for where to take your own cause marketing you must eschew the bad. But you must also learn how to refuse the good. I was reminded of this by an anecdote about Steve Jobs in a book I’ve been reading called ‘ The Idea Hunter ,’ by Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer. They tell about how Jobs was speaking to a group of executives at Yahoo when the subject of saying no to bad ideas came up. “That’s easy,” said Jobs. “The challenge is in saying no to good ideas.” Jobs came back to this theme more than once and in one instance was quoted thusly: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.” Anyone with a modicum of judgment knows the stinkers. But it’s the good ideas that require real expertise to deal with. That’s because if you le...

One criticism of cause marketing I often hear is that money raised that way is almost certain to be a pittance for most charities. But such criticisms overlook a crucial point about cause marketing funds. Nationally syndicated author Cecil Adams, for instance, when addressing his “answer-man” column to the issue of pink ribbon cause marketing wondered why conscientious Yoplait eaters wouldn’t just send a $12 check to Susan G. Komen for the Cure rather than futz around with yogurt carton lids. More to the point, if your charity is not Komen or Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital… each of which annually raise more than $75 million via cause marketing…what’s in it for your charity? There’s two main answers; the second is that your sponsor-partner has a strong incentive to promote your cause as they promote their sponsorship. Charities shouldn’t settle for just brand-building or awareness-raising when they sign cause marketing deals, but it’s not ...

A lot of retail establishments do paper icon campaigns, but relatively few seem to have embraced the bounceback offer. That’s why I was glad to see the bounceback coupon at the left from Denny’s. Right now Denny’s, a chain with more than 1,500 restaurants across the United States, is selling and displaying paper icons benefiting Toys for Tots, the toy giveaway charity. When you buy the paper icon at the left, Denny’s gives you the bounceback coupon below for an order of Pancake Puppies, which are sort of like doughnut holes. Pancake Puppies, which usually sell for $2, almost cry out for a cup of coffee or hot chocolate to accompany them, so Denny’s is betting that when I redeem the coupon that I’ll buy at least that and, more likely, think of the Pancake Puppies as a kind of appetizer for a larger meal. For that reason, almost every retailer that sells paper icons should probably try and figure out some kind of bounceback offer appropriate to their business. Back in the day at Children...

Some causes have been around long enough that they have a mountainous inventory of really great communications items that could potentially be monetized. But how? The challenge is more common than you might think. The Muscular Dystrophy Association is sitting on hundreds of hours of variety-show entertainment performed on its annual telethon since 1966. Assuming it owns clear rights to those performances, the MDA ought to be able somehow monetize that inventory. My old employer, the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, has similar if far less extensive inventory of entertainment performances. Likewise the National 4-H Council has 110 years-worth of posters and the like commissioned from the best graphic artists of the day. I know because I’ve personally seen the tiniest fraction of it. Wouldn’t the 4-H Council love to realize some proceeds from its treasure trove of communications materials? Long-standing causes like the Audubon Society, the March of Dimes, Federal Duck Stamps, and ot...

Almost two weeks ago I was in a local two-store pizza chain and my kids found the handcard at the left for me. But what they found wasn’t immediately clear to me. At first glance, I thought it might be a way to drive cause marketing to smaller retail establishments, something I’ve called for in the past. A second glance made me think it might be a cause marketing powered inducement for customers to give some feedback. Indeed, that is the intent. But a cause marketing appeal is not the actual inducement. Instead ‘Businesses that Matter,’ the name on the handcard, is a subset of Deals that Matter , a Groupon competitor that offers to donate 15 percent of their proceeds to causes you care about. When you sign up, Deals that Matter lets you name your preferred charity for the donation. So what is Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals’ logo doing there on something that seemingly doesn’t directly benefit the charity? From Deals that Matter’s perspective it’s there to suggest at their bona fi...

On Wednesdays in my market all the major grocers insert their flyer in the local newspaper. Yesterday all of them save WalMart had a cause marketing element in their respective flyers. Here’s a review of each: Smith’s is owned by grocery giant Kroger, WalMart’s largest domestic grocery competitor. Their campaign benefits the USO, the charity that aids members of the military and their families and now celebrating its 70th anniversary. The USO reusable bag is an extension of a campaign for the USO Kroger announced in July, 2011 . Participating stores have coin donation canisters at check stands and/or ask customers to round up their purchases to the nearest dollar to benefit the USO. The full campaign lasts one year with a goal of raising $1 million. A limited promotion with Procter & Gamble has already generated $250,000. In addition, the #47 Kroger NASCAR features USO branding this season and Kroger locations with medical clinics called ‘The Little Clinic’ donated $1 for each spor...

A press release yesterday announced that Rite Aid, the $25.2 billion (sales) retail drug chain has passed the $50 million mark in donations to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, the sixth company among CMNH’s stable of sponsors to do so. This is good news for small, ambitious charities everywhere. Since 1983 CMNH has generated more than $4.3 billion, or on average, about $153 million a year. While CMNH has a successful direct giving effort, it’s only about 10 years old. And the cause does little if any major gifts fundraising or planned giving. All but a very small percentage of that $4.3 billion total was generated through cause marketing, grassroots fundraising, or some variation thereof. (The photo at the left of Rite Aid’s President and CEO, John Standley is therefore instructive. He's at a fundraising car wash benefiting Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.) The reason that’s so is because of the interesting dynamic that exists between CMNH and the 170 hospitals affiliate...

Smith’s Food and Drug is in the middle of its annual campaign for Primary Children’s Medical Center , a key part of which is this paper icon. I purchased mine for $1 on Saturday, May 7, 2011. Since 1992 Smith’s, a 130-store unit of the grocery giant Kroger , has donated more than $7.6 million to Primary, one of only a handful of Trauma One pediatric hospitals in the country, and the only such hospital in its service area, which includes parts of Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana. Smith’s donation to Primary in 2010 was $1 million and $837,000 in 2009 , signaling the regard with which Primary is held in the local community as well as Smith’s skill at fundraising, even in the face of an economic downturn. The paper icon is large, more than 6½” in diameter, and in full color. The back is blank except for a black and white UPC code. The clerk dutifully asked me if I wanted to buy the icon. The credit card machine had a coordinated paper surround that also promoted the campaign. ...

Since cause marketing usually faces the consumer, retailers are under pressure to engage in cause marketing campaigns for causes large and small. Necessarily this means that retailers say no to more cause partnerships than they say yes to. This is as it should be. There are a million or so 501(c)(3) nonprofit charities in the United States and only a thin slice of them are good matches for retail sponsors. That said, there are certainly many instances when a retailer could be well-matched with more than one cause. Indeed, some grocers do paper icon campaigns for MDA , Children’s Miracle Network , Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and others, albeit separated by several months. Witness this circular from Lowe’s that came to me yesterday. On the front page one of the on-sale items is an 18-piece tool kit, in pink because it benefit's Lowe's campaign for Habitat for Humanity, called ' Women Build .' Appropriately, Lowe’s supports Habitat for Humanity philanthropically...

Cause marketing with consumer packaged goods often takes place on packaging. While companies are sometimes loathe to forgo this valuable real estate, it’s almost always the case that the campaign sponsor and cause both benefit most when the packaging explains the campaign well. Remember the wise words from our friends in direct marketing: “tell more, sell more.” In fact, I once undertook a study of higher value food items on store shelves for a client. What I found was that more expensive or high cachet food items had, on average, more than 20% words on their packaging than did less expensive substitute items. High cachet items were more likely to tell a story or include a narrative of some kind. The packaging items from the Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database, all circa 2002-2004, illustrate my point. Blue Sky Soda sells in natural food stores. I picked up this can at Whole Foods. Blue Sky, owned by the larger soda purveyor Hansen’s, is kind of the Shasta of natural sodas. That is, ...

Early in my career a grizzled old veteran of marketing and communications for nonprofits said in a meeting “its all comes down to the T-shirts.” He meant that when it came to marketing and communications campaigns the biggest battles were often over the smallest things, like the T-shirt. Because when it comes to marketing and communications while almost nobody knows anything of the marcom concepts of ‘return of customer investment’ or, ‘share of requirement’ everybody from the CEO to the janitor understands T-shirts. I’m now a grizzled old veteran and I beg to differ. Everybody seems to want input on T-shirts, that’s true enough. But it’s not all about the T-shirt. No, in cause marketing one of the details you should obsess over is the picture… or pictures… that illustrates the cause. Among other talents, these days an effective cause marketer better be a good photo editor. The classic example is Special Olympics. As soon as you see the kids racing in a pool, getting a medal, or reachi...

Borders appears headed for bankruptcy. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection back in September 2010. Circuit City is gone. Ultimate Electronics is about to fade into the dust heap of failed electronics retailers. And I’m having a hard time finding any current signs of life of the hot jeans brand PRVCY Premium , whose distinctive back-pocket stitching adorned the patooshkas of starlets like Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, Paris Hilton, Christina Applegate, Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, and Jessica Alba. PRVCY was founded by Carolyn Jones in 2002. Blockbuster did some great cause marketing back in the day with Children’s Miracle Network . Borders still touts its community giving programs, with a special emphasis on literacy causes . I posted in this space on one of Circuit City's cause marketing efforts. I'll bet Ultimate Electronics had active community outreach programs as well. Here’s what PRVCY Premium’s website says about its purpose . “The company was founded with a n...

I have ranted often about the hazards of cause marketing without transparency. But the fact is, there are plenty of campaigns that manage to be successful without much transparency. Plenty still cling to the obsolete language, “a portion of the proceeds,’ and do just fine. Get Away Today , a family vacation travel agency uses just that language when describing its donations to Children’s Miracle Network How does that work? Am I wrong about the necessity of transparency? Maybe it’s more of a nicety than a requirement, like Skull Candy earbuds with your new iPhone or stopping by in Maui after staying in Kaua’i. Case in point is the back page of a small brochure that came stuffed in my credit union statement earlier this month from Get Away Today (GAT). GAT is a privately-owned travel agency with billings of about $50 million a year which built its business booking Disneyland vacation packages for families, although it now books to all kinds of non-Disney destinations as well. Only Disne...

The printed edition of Fortune Magazine runs a regular feature called ‘My Metric’ wherein business leaders identify informal but telling measures of current economic activity. In the January 17, 2011 Michael Glimcher , CEO of Glimcher Realty Trust cited as his metric an increased number of black cars on the streets of New York City as a sign of the U.S. economy’s (still pending?) resurgence. That got me thinking, what unconventional metrics evidence the power of certain cause marketing efforts? One immediately leapt to mind, although only General Mills, which makes Yoplait yogurt in the U.S., can measure it. The Yoplait lid at left... which I purchased in December 2010... can NOT be redeemed for a $0.10 donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Instead it promotes Yoplait’s sponsorship of Komen’s Race for the Cure events, which are numerous. But I’d bet you a six-pack of Yoplait Greek Honey Vanilla that people nonetheless still send in some number of the lids above in an attempt to re...

Nine local stations in my market are conducting a two-day radiothon benefiting the State’s largest homeless shelter... called the Road Home... yesterday and today. Their fundraising goal is $250,000 . This pales in comparison to the big dogs of radiothons, Children’s Miracle Network and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital , which generate tens of millions of dollars. But it’s an admirable effort nonetheless, none the least of which because it involves stations from two separate ownership groups and multiple radio formats! After getting killed in the early days of the Great Recession the Radio Advertising Bureau reports that radio has grown in 2010 , although more so at the national than local level. Still, how do you do ask a local radio station to do a radiothon at a time when stations can't afford to turn down even one ad? Here’s how: most stations do change the way they format their programming during the radiothon, but the time spent talking about the cause comes out of the ...

For a limited time you can dedicate a small area of the #56 NAPA car, driven by Martin Truex Jr. , to the name of someone touched by breast cancer by making a donation of as little as $5.60 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The goal is to raise $56,000 for Komen. Here’s how it works: When you make a donation to Susan G. Komen through a special Facebook app , the name of the person you designate will be physically placed on the #56 car in conjunction with a special pink paint scheme. In October NAPA is also selling at its stores a co-branded pink and blue racecap for $3.99. The campaign is called, “A ll Out for the Cure .” The custom-painted #56 car will race on Nov. 7 in all its pinkness at the Texas Motor Speedway at the AAA 500. In effect Komen and NAPA have developed a 200mph left-turn only icon campaign ! And in doing so they’ve skillfully avoided the inherent psychic challenge of putting a charity’s name on a racecar. Years ago, when I worked at Children’s Miracle Network, we were ...

RIP Merlin Olsen Merlin Olsen , a 14-time NFL Pro Bowl selection, actor and philanthropist died Thursday after a battle with mesothelioma. He was 69. I knew Merlin through my years at the Children’s Miracle Network , with which he was intimately connected from its founding in 1983. I'll leave it to others to memorialize his astonishing football career , or his careers as an actor and broadcaster . Instead I'll address Merlin as I knew him. For many years it was my pleasure to put words into Merlin’s mouth. It was a pleasure because in addition to all the other wonderful things people have said about him, Merlin was the consummate professional. It was a point of pride with him that he could read any voiceover script you gave him and get a perfect read in one take. Usually he did. I remember once that Merlin did the voiceover work for a particular ad. Circumstances were such that about 3 months passed by before we cut the ad together. In the meantime something had changed necessi...

One of the defining characteristics of many of the very best cause marketers is that they have a basic cause marketing schema that can be modified and used again and again in multiple contexts. Susan G. Komen for the Cure, for instance, does walks and runs very well. They’re very good at branded products, too. Proctor & Gamble’s ‘ Buy One, Give One ’ approach to cause marketing is well-honed across that behemoth company’s many divisions. St. Jude’s radiothon... Country Cares for Kids ... is terrific example of that fundraising approach. In addition, St. Jude is exceptional at all the back-office elements of cause marketing campaigns, much the way that Wal-Mart excels at logistics. Children’s Miracle Network raises tens of millions a year using their Miracle Balloon paper icon, which they can customize for almost any retail setting. Such schema’s form the backbone of the cause marketing efforts for those entities. For charities the power of having a basic cause marketing schema is ...

A few years back a colleague and I wangled a trip to northern Italy to speak on the topic of cause marketing. One of the other presenters was an American like us, but all of the attendees were European, predominantly Italian. We were there preaching the big, bold cause marketing of the type practiced at Children’s Miracle Network and it plainly made a few of the attendees uncomfortable. Some openly told us that they found the practice gauche. We finished our presentation with some Q&A, which lasted past our appointed time. So we took the discussion into the hallway. I remember in particular one fellow from Rome. He was the executive director of a children’s charity that he felt had potential popular appeal but which had fallen out of favor politically and had lost funding. Domestic charities in Italy and much of continental Europe are funded directly by local and national governments. He needed a new fundraising approach that could make up for some of the funding that was no longe...

Blogger's Note: What follows is a profile and interview I wrote of Children's Miracle Network co-founder Joe Lake, who was recently installed as the CEO of the Starfish Television Network . This originally appeared in the Salt Lake Enterprise on Monday, May 11. Lining the walls of the office of Joe Lake, the new CEO of the Starfish Television Network, a 501(c) (3) public charity and television network founded in 2006 and headquartered in Midvale, are pictures of the many celebrities he has worked with. There are pictures of Joe with Goldie Hawn, Sidney Poitier, Jeff Bridges, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Rob Lowe and Walter Cronkite, and affectionately-autographed publicity stills from Bob Hope and Rich Little. It’s something you’d expect in the office of a Hollywood agent, or at a celebrity hangout in Manhattan, or Chicago or Vegas. But the Starfish Television Network, whose mission is to tell the stories of nation’s nonprofits in a way that educates, entertains and inspires its ...