Cause Marketing

One of the things that Children’s Miracle Network learned early on in its production of its eponymous Telethon was that it had to tell specific stories of the individuals who benefited from its efforts: sick children. CMN, which was a path-breaking cause marketer, specifically decided that the narrative arc of those stories had to be about children who were sick but got better thanks to the specialized care available only at children’s hospitals in North America. And so there would be no stories about children who died and none suggesting that if only people had been more generous with their donations that a child might still be alive. CMN decided that such approaches were exploitive of children. By the time I joined the organization less than 10 years after its founding, the tone of these stories was well laid down. As was the name by which we referred to them; 'Miracle Stories.' The term ‘Miracle Story’ described not only the videos that would appear on the Telethon, but i...

Years ago when I was writing the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon I struggled with the question of how much to ask people to give. It was received wisdom that we should ask even for small donations; $5 or less, for instance . Or as we often put it, “anything you can give.” Many years later, some of this seemed to be born out in the 2009 book “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive,” by Goldstein, Martin, and Cialdini. The authors highlighted an experiment in which people were asked for as little as a penny in door-to-door fundraising and actually the average donation went up a hair. They conclude that asking for ‘even a penny,’ would help many fundraising appeals. But it’s easy to imagine some subsets of fundraising groaning over that study; direct mail fundraisers, for instance. While donations during the Telethon had long since ceased being the raison d'etre of the show when I wrote it, the money that came in during the show did represent about 12 to 14 perc...

There’s an old story… perhaps even true… told about Winston Churchill at a party. Another guest reproves him saying, “Winston, you are drunk.” He responds, the story goes, by saying, “yes madam, and you are ugly. But tomorrow I will be sober and you will still be ugly.” We laugh at that line because it evidences Churchill’s famous wit and self-composure. But, let’s be honest, that remark has barbs. It stings! Churchill was a great man, but he wasn’t always a nice man. The same, I think, can be said of Jerry Lewis, the man who last night on 4 September 2011 was denied any chance to appear on the MDA Telethon that he helped start and make famous. Apparently Jerry was scheduled to appear in a taped segment singing his signature song 'You'll Never Walk Alone.' But even that was stymied at the last minute, reports say . I’ve been hard on Lewis in these pages. As a marketer I always thought he was always too closely enmeshed with the branding of the Muscular Dystrophy Association...

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...

If you’re the sponsor of a cause marketing campaign, you’re in the green room, you’re in a makeup chair and you’re sitting pretty. Here’s what I mean. When I was writing the Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Telethon a representative from one of CMN’s largest sponsors used to avail herself of the same makeup services provided for celebrity hosts and guests. Strictly speaking this was verboten. While she appeared on air during sponsor segments, CMN had a separate makeup area for sponsors. She had some thin excuse why she couldn’t use the regular makeup services… skin allergies or something. At any rate, everyone from CMN in a position to raise the issue with her chose to just let it go. She had a volcanic temper and if she took up a little face time with an honest-to-pete Hollywood makeup artist, what did it really matter? It’s not so different when it comes to evaluating the success of a cause marketing campaign. While the cause and agency in a cause marketing campaign should have their...

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...

Years ago when I was still writing the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon (CMN), I would get a call about every month or so from someone who was interested in producing a telethon and wanted to learn how CMN did it. Of course I did my level best to dissuade them because who needs the competition, right? But beyond that everyone that called thought that producing a telethon was a matter of setting up a telephone bank and hiring a camera crew. If only. They didn’t know about the $2 million budget, the crew of hundreds, the satellite uplinks and downlinks, the celebrity contract riders, the script of 40,000 words, and a million (no exaggeration) other details. I'll never forget leading a CNN producer around backstage at the Children's Miracle Network telethon at Disney World and the look of awe on her face. It really was a big, complicated show. All these years later, telethons are breathing their last, the victim of 500-channel universe and other modern challenges I’ve highlight...

Anatomy of a Multi-Phase Cause-Related Marketing Sponsorship Last weekend, May 31 and June 1, the Children’s Miracle Network aired their 25th annual telethon, called ‘ Celebration '. Now more than ever Celebration is a sponsorship vehicle and as it happens, I caught their recognition of Carmike Cinemas , a cause-related marketing sponsorship that even today is unusually well-rounded, if I say so myself. Here were the elements back when I sold the sponsorship in 1998: During the month of May in the lead up to the telethon, Carmike would broadcast on their more than 2,500 screens a movie trailer featuring then San Francisco 49er Quarterback (and now a member of the NFL Hall of Fame) Steve Young . Steve narrated the story of a kid who was desperately sick but had gotten better at on of CMN’s affiliated hospitals. The trailer was about 70 seconds long. Carmike would post movie-style and sized posters in their frames featuring the promotion the child and Steve Young. Carmike would sell ...

The other day I got an email commenting on my nostalgic post last June about the old Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Telethon. I spent seven years at CMN, five of the them writing the Telethon. In those days it was 21 hours of live TV that aired on more than 225 TV stations in the U.S. and Canada. In effect, the person said, “alright smart guy, what would you do to return the CMN Telethon (now called Celebration) to its glory days?” Let me be clear. The email didn’t come from anyone at Children's Miracle Network. And I'm not privy to what the management at CMN and the show’s producers have in mind for Celebration in the near or distant future. Here’s how I responded: CMN needs to decide who the audience is for the Telethon (or who they want it to be). The whole time I wrote the telethon I never got a straight answer to that question. When I left, the Telethon was loaded up with male professional athletes. They were great for the sponsors. But were athletes more likely to get ...

How I Miss the Old Children’s Miracle Network Telethon Children’s Miracle Network , the giant charity that raises money for 175 children’s hospitals in the United States and Canada had its annual telethon this last weekend, such as it is. They don’t call a telethon any more; haven’t called it that for perhaps 15 years. But still I miss it. Of course this is just personal nostalgia. I wrote the old-school Children’s Miracle Network Telethon for five years, and so I was intimately involved with its production. My first CMN Telethon featured Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald and they sang a kick-butt version of the Doobie Brothers’ hit “What a Fool Believes,” which they co-wrote and for which they won a Grammy Award. I don’t know how it looked and sounded to the TV audience, but my mind’s eye will never forget watching them live from the outdoor stage at Disneyland’s Videopolis ! That night we kept a skeleton audience who stayed for a long list of comedy performers do sets right on the...