Cause Marketing

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, ...

In honor of its 25th anniversary, Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) published a special 10-page insert in the June 9, 2008 issue of U.S. News & World Report, and on the last page was the sponsor recognition ad on the left. The insert was placed in U.S. News’ annual rankings of children’s hospitals in the United States. For those of you keeping score at home, there’s more than 70 current sponsors in that logo soup, several of which have been with CMN for nearly the full 25 years; notably Dairy Queen and Marriott. The logos are arranged roughly in order of current contributions. Since 1983 CMN has generated more than $3.4 billion, or on average, about $136 million a year. While CMN has a successful direct mail effort, it’s less than 10 years old. And the cause does little if any major gifts fundraising or planned giving. Therefore, it’s safe to say that all but a very small percentage of that $3.4 billion total was generated through cause-related marketing, grassroots fundraising, or ...