Cause Marketing

Been thinking a lot about the topic of transactional cause marketing versus publicized corporate charitable donations. Cone’s most recent Cause Evolution study found that people are only slightly more favorably inclined towards companies employing transactional cause marketing (53%) than to lump sum charitable donations (47%). Transactional cause marketing is when the sponsor ties its donation to a purchase. Cone’s survey comes on the heals of a small study highlighted in the 2008 book, “Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive,” by Goldstein, Martin, Cialdini. In this instance, the authors test what amounts to a cause marketing approach to persuade guests in a hotel to reuse the towels in their room. They test a transactional cause marketing approach: “reuse their towels and the hotel will make a donation to an environmental cause.” But they found it no more effective than the card left in the room simply asking people to reuse their towels for the sake of the environment. ...

Cone Communications released a new survey on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 about consumer expectations and understanding of corporate green claims, and the results are both a wake-up call and an opportunity for companies messaging their green bona fides. In the study, called the 2012 Cone Green Gap Trend Tracker, Cone found that consumers just aren’t willing to do their due diligence when it comes to the environmental impacts of a company’s products. Ergo, 73 percent of consumers want companies to provide more environmental information on products directly on the packaging. Another 71 percent wish companies would do a better job helping them understand the environment terms they use. Some 36 percent believe that common environmental marketing terms like ‘green’ or ‘environmentally friendly’ mean that product has a positive effect on the environment. Another 18 percent believe that such terms mean that the products’ effect on the environment is neutral. Read Cone’s press materials for more r...

Scarcely a week goes by that someone doesn’t release a study or survey about cause marketing. And yet there’s still some research I’d like to see. Since the New Year I’ve seen studies, findings or surveys related to cause marketing from the following: IEG projects cause marketing spending to grow in 2012 by 3.1 percent to $1.73 billion. Among other findings, the fourth Edelman Good Purpose Consumer Study found that the emerging markets of Mexico, Brazil, China and India were most willing to buy a brand that supports a cause. Landor Associates released its annual Global Corporate Reputation Index and highlighted the cause marketing work of Google and Ford. An outfit called Wide Angle surveyed its consumer panel and found them more willing to give $1 from a purchase rather than winning a meal at restaurant they’ve been wanting to try. Nielsen surveyed Vietnamese consumers and found that 80 percent prefer to do business with companies that seem to be giving back. That’s a reasonably broad...

I write this post from my home office in my basement, which is heated, well-lit and comfortable. The floor beneath my feet is carpeted. Had the basement lacked any of these features, we probably wouldn’t have bought this house. Such amenities are assumed. But as a college student I lived in one of those classic ‘pit’ kinds of apartments. The house was about 100 years old back then and the foundation was made of rock rather than concrete. The basement floor in that old house was compacted dirt. Increasingly cause marketing is assumed as well for companies that face the consumer, notably grocers. This was made clear in several questions the SuperMarketGuru.com asked its 1800-member consumer panel about cause marketing. ‘Guru’ asked four cause marketing questions in addition to its other questions: Were consumers more likely to shop in a supermarket that supports causes? Would consumers be tolerant of price increases that allow for donations? Were consumers likely to travel further to sh...

Can you cause market to real men? Do guys who wear plaid shirts and drive trucks to work respond to garden variety transactional cause marketing? I know all the cause marketing surveys are scrupulous about including a 50:50 mix of women to men. And there’s no way to get to 88 percent approval ratings unless a good number of the men in the survey are saying that cause marketing works for them, too. But let’s be honest, there’s no bottle cap campaigns from the beer companies for prostate cancer, even though the numbers of women diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States each year is almost exactly the same as the number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer. For most of my time in cause marketing I’ve assumed that women are more responsive than men to cause marketing appeals. And the 2010 Cone Cause Evolution Study bears that out, sort of. Cone finds moms much more responsive to cause marketing than the population as a whole. More than the population as a whole, moms are more lik...

Cone’s recent Cause Evolution study found that while transactional cause marketing is still esteemed by consumers, it’s only slightly more so than when a company just makes a lump-sum donation to the cause. Transactional cause marketing is when the sponsor ties its donation to a purchase. I posted on the study back in October and while I didn’t quite throw a wet blanket on the idea, I found that part of Cone’s study unpersuasive. What happens, I wondered, if the charitable donation is in-kind? Does the company’s halo shine just as brightly as if they donated cash? What if the in-kind donation comes in the form of shared ad space? That seems to be what’s happening in this ad for vitamin D supplements from GNC and in support of the Melanoma Research Alliance . The Alliance funds research into melanoma, which kills right around 9,000 Americans every year. The great Bob Marley died of melanoma at the tender age of 36. GNC sells supplements and nutritional products at mall stores. The ad c...

Must…control…the…urge…to…be…sarcastic. In its recently-released Cause Evolution Study , (registration required) Cone, Inc. found that people are only slightly more favorably inclined towards companies employing transactional cause marketing (53%) than to lump sum charitable donations (47%). Transactional cause marketing is when the donation is tied to a purchase. I’m still processing that part of Cone’s findings and I’m not sure if I believe or not. Maybe I just don't see how that finding really benefits sponsors. Assuming it's accurate, we can probably expect more efforts like the FSI (Free Standing Insert) above. In late September, in time for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Purina dropped this FSI supporting Susan G. Komen for the Cure . Purina , which started making animal feed in 1894, will write a check for $300,000 to Komen in support of its mission to cure breast cancer… in humans. Back in May 2010, Purina ran a themed FSI for National Pet Month, in which during...

The 2010 Cone Nonprofit Marketing Trend Tracker has attracted a fair amount of attention, especially in the social media. But almost none of the blog or Facebook posts, or Tweets got much beyond the headline in Cone's release, which reads: "More than Three-Quarters of Americans say a Nonprofit-Corporate Partnership Makes a Cause Stand Out." This latest study confirms and... to a degree... builds on Cone's studies over the last 15-20 years. But it's Cause Marketing 101. Cause Marketing 201 is a couple of paragraphs down in the body of the release. The Cone study also found that 75 percent of Americans "Want to hear about the results of corporate/nonprofit partnerships." Few cause marketers, corporate or nonprofit, get this right. But it couldn't be more vital to giving successful cause marketing the transparency it requires. People want to know that progress is being made. Cone's release says this means that people want to know about "the po...

Today I stray a little way from cause marketing to address the topic of media allocation, but there is a relevancy and application for cause marketers. Recently Prosper International released an analysis of the media mix the Big 3 automakers use against data collected by Big Research of what media people say influences them in their purchases weighted by consumption and cost. To put it more simply, they asked people who said they planned to buy/lease a GM, Chrysler or Ford product in the next six months what media would be most influential in their decision. Then they sliced and diced the data to balance which media people said most influenced them to come up with the media allocation that would gave the most bang for the buck. According to Ad Age , in 2007 GM spent its media allocation this way: Magazine…..12.4% Newspaper…5% Outdoor……1.5% TV………….39.4% Radio………3.5% Internet…….7% Other……….31.5% Prosper’s recommended allocation is above. As you can see, using Prosper’s modeling GM’s TV...

Get Your Chin off Your Chest It’s probably just superstition, but I have steadfastly avoided posting anything about the recession. After all, considering the amount of liquidity sloshing around after all the actions already taken by central bankers in Asia, Europe, and the United States, it’s plain that the real problem right now isn’t access to capital. The problem is one of confidence. This is just one small little blog on the semi-obscure topic of cause marketing, but I see little reason to pile on. So, assuming that the economy doesn’t turn into Oklahoma circa 1935 (Dustbowl deflation) or the Weimar Republic of 1923 (hyperinflation), this will be my first and last posting on the topic of the economy. In the States, economists are struggling with exactly which recession to compare this one to. Is it like the downturns of 2000, 1980 and 1974? Is it a second Great Depression? (Short answer: No. For one thing, unemployment was 25 percent in the States in 1933.) Could it be an analog to...

On October 1, 2008 Cone Inc. , in conjunction with the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, released the best validated proof yet that cause-related marketing gives certain products a sales lift. The study had two parts. In the first, 182 individuals aged 18-62 and broadly representative of the American consumer reviewed the contents of a new regional magazine. Each were randomly assigned to either a ‘cause’ group or a control group. The cause group saw cause-related marketing advertisements for four products: shampoo; toothpaste; chips; and lightbulbs. The control group did not see the CRM ads. Then the study participants were ushered into a convenience store setting with approximately 150 SKUS. Some of products had a shelf tag that said something like, ‘great value.’ Others said, “proud supporter of…” Study participants were given real money to shop with and were allowed to take home both the products they bought and any leftover money. While all four products saw a sales lif...

Cone Inc.’s blog 'Do You Stand for Something?' recently posted on the topic of cause marketing with celebrities. They cited two surveys… one of marketers and the other of consumers… to suggest that cause-related marketing with celebrities is a less than effective tactic. Yet still we see celebrities and causes tying the knot faster than Britney Spears on a weekend bender in Las Vegas. What's up with that? Certainly you have to parse out the surveys a little. Here’s what they wrote on the Cone blog : “New Research out this week surveyed marketers to explore the roles of celebrities in cause-marketing efforts, and the findings indicate that while these spokespeople often help raise awareness of a cause, they are not particularly effective in inspiring people to act. According to (the) survey, the majority of respondents (about 58%) indicate a celeb’s tie to a cause may motivate them to look into the cause, but not necessarily become involved. Cone’s own consumer research foun...

Less doesn’t always mean less. Sometimes in life there’s an inverse relationship between resources and creativity. For instance, Einstein didn’t need the Large Hadron Collider to figure out relativity. Then again, sometimes less is less. And that’s certainly true of this promotion from Henkel. This doubletruck FSI page from August 10, 2008 is more a promotion than a cause-related marketing campaign. But there is a cause element. The page features pictures of kids heading back to school and promises that some lucky school is going to win $25,000. School cause-related marketing in the United States is a well-trod path. Both Campbell’s and General Mills do it to great effect. Henkel could do a whole lot worse than emulate either one. The promotion is not tied to sales of any of Henkel’s products. Rather it’s contest driven. You point your Internet browser to henkelhelps.com and write a 200-500 word essay on what your school could do with that lone prize. For one school $25,000 is a me...

Choreographing a Digital Spark One of the cardinal principles of adult education theory is that the most meaningful learning frequently takes place between students, and the teacher’s role is to moderate more often than lecture. It’s true in cause-related marketing. Organizations like Children’s Miracle Network, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and St Jude Children’s Research Hospitals all hold periodic conventions for the people in the field that raise money. The conventions serve to unite disparate groups, provide a forum for unveiling new campaign elements, build camaraderie, spark ideas, etc. Any of that can happen in meeting rooms, but often as not it takes place in the hallways, over meals or drinks. David Hessekiel’s Cause Marketing Forum serves a similar purpose. Likewise, IEG’s annual Sponsorship Conference and the Business in the Community Annual Conference in the UK. But what if your need is more immediate? What if you’re from a distant part of the globe? What if you d...

Four studies have come out this year that aim to measure either directly or obliquely consumer’s attitudes towards cause-related marketing. All the studies have confidence levels of 95 percent or more. And yet two of them suggest that consumers have jaundiced opinions of cause-related marketing and two find that they’re quite positive on the practice. How could that be? The four studies are: “Rethinking Corporate Responsibility” from the PR firm Fleishman-Hillard and the National Consumers League, and conducted by Western Wats. “Consumer Survey: Media Use, Holiday Trends, Cause-Marketing” commissioned by the American Marketing Association , and conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation. “2007 Cone Cause Evolution Survey” from Cone, LLC, an advertising agency, and also conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation. The most recent is from Edelman, also a PR firm, in support of the launch of its new consultancy Good Purpose, and called the Goodpurpose Consumer Study. All the studies...

You Say You Want an Evolution? There’s not a card-carrying cause marketer who’s been in the business more than 10 years or so who doesn’t owe a debt of gratitude to Cone , Inc. the cause-marketing and social responsibility agency now owned by the Omnicom Group. Back in the day 14 years ago when we were knocking on corporate doors, putting together proposals and making presentations to corporate marketers about the only substantive weapon we had at our disposal that suggested that cause marketing worked was the old Cone-Roper survey of attitudes about cause marketing. It was a revelation and it helped enormously. The Cone surveys have been often updated over the years. The latest version of the Cone study, called the Cone Cause Evolution Study , is out and many of my fellow cause-marketing bloggers and analysts have already done an admirable job of addressing the study’s intriguing findings. Check Selfish Giving , or David Hessekiel’s newsletter at the Cause Marketing Forum , for instan...

The 'Ancillary Opportunities' Section of Your Cause-Marketing Proposal At the end of your cause-marketing proposal to sponsors there should be a section called something like “Ancillary Opportunities.” It’s the place where you add the other stuff that came out of brainstorming sessions that you can pull off and which complements the principal part of the promotion. Ancillary means ‘subordinate’ or ‘of secondary importance.’ But don’t think that just because ancillary opportunities are subordinate or secondary that you can leave them out of the proposal. For one thing, you may have spent a lot of time researching the target sponsor and still missed their hot button. Remember Hotmail was the second idea that Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith presented to Silicon Valley venture capitalists Draper Fisher Jurvetson . The ‘Ancillary Opportunity’ section is also a place to showcase your creativity and generate trust. And like the book title says, “ You Don’t Get what You Deserve, You Get W...

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 ...