Cause Marketing

In my wallet are cards and keyfobs for a half-dozen loyalty programs from the sophisticated, like SkyMiles and Marriott Rewards and a couple grocery chains to several no-tech buy 10 get one free punch cards from a bakery and a couple of restaurants. Your wallet or handbag probably holds a similar variety of rewards cards. But is there a potential match between loyalty programs and cause marketing? Marketing superstar Coke, which runs the gigantic MyCokeRewards.com rewards program, has placed its bet. Now to be clear, label redemption efforts from Campbell’s, the Boxtops for Education campaign from General Mills and others are both loyalty and cause marketing programs. But MyCokeRewards was founded as an effort to reward Coke purchasers, not their favored causes. At the left is an ad that ran in the 15 August, 2011 issue of People magazine. Register your school at mycokerewards.com/sprite and it could receive a $25,000 grant to become a ‘Sprite Spark Park.’ Formatted as a ...

You ever go to a fancy gala and read the program with all the awkward sponsor announcements in the back? You know: “The Investment Counselors at Second Fidelity and Trust Congratulate Sumner Redstone as the First Children’s 2010 Father of the Year and Wish Him Every Success!” That’s kind of what’s at work in this ad from the inflight magazine called Delta Sky . The magazine had a special feature on Pittsburgh and in that feature was this ad from Bayer , which has its North American headquarters there. On June 5, Pittsburgh hosted the United Nation’s event World Environment Day , and Bayer and its foundation, along with other Pittsburgh corporate mainstays like Alcoa and Heinz , were among the sponsors. But look at the visual. There’s a shirtless boy gratefully drinking clean water straight from the spigot, a spigot which has that fat, ragged-looking weld that suggests ‘developing world.’ It’s a really splendid picture. When I saw it, that visual told me that Bayer was doing some kind ...