Cause Marketing

The February 2012 issue of Outside magazine has a critical assessment of LiveStrong, Lance Armstrong’s anti-cancer foundation and I feel obliged to respond to it. The first criticism is that LiveStrong no longer donates to cancer research efforts and instead has transitioned itself into a role as kind of information conduit for people fighting cancer. Livestrong is now primarily a cancer awareness-raising charity. The problem is that some of the charity’s supporters still promote Livestrong as a cancer research charity. That, of course, is wrong and supporters should depict Livestrong's mission honestly and forthrightly. Livestrong began phasing out of hard science research funding in 2005 because the charity's board didn’t feel like it could make a big enough dent in cancer research. Armstrong survived two bouts with testicular cancer. A second problem, says the author of the article, Bill Gifford, is that Armstrong wears Livestrong around him as a kind of armor against the d...

How should an agency evaluate a cause campaign it had a hand in? This question comes on the heels of posts the last two Fridays about how to evaluate a cause marketing campaign if you represent the cause and how to do so if you represent the sponsor . While there’s plenty in both posts that’s pertinent, agencies still have their own unique gloss on evaluating the success of a campaign. Agencies frequently care about things like whether a campaign helps them ad another trophy to the case or brings the respect of peers and the trade press. Agencies care about achieving higher creative standards. And it goes without saying that agencies care about whether the work they do for the campaign meets internal benchmarks for profitability. But in my view what should matter most for agencies is the degree to which they are aligned with the nonprofit’s goals and objectives. Agencies must evaluate the success of a cause marketing campaign based on whether it achieved the nonprofit’s and the sponso...