Cause Marketing

The cause marketing blog is, in large measure, an idea blog. It’s meant to help you, my faithful readers, to come up with ideas for better cause marketing. But ideas are easy. You gotta ‘ship’ as Seth Godin says, quoting Steve Jobs. Godin talks about ‘shipping’ in his recent book Linchpin . In one sentence it means that you must finish what you start, get it out the door, deliver your product or service, implement. In Godin’s case, he ships when his books hit the stores. I ship every weekday when a new post goes up on the cause marketing blog. Failure to ship is the usual reason why Donald Trump fires someone every Sunday night on The Celebrity Apprentice . Shipping is what Tom Hanks did at the end of his movie Castaway . Hanks' shipping in Castaway is lampooned in the video at the left. How can you ‘ship’ your cause marketing more effectively? There’s a lot of models out there, Godin’s included. The book Making Ideas Happen , from Scott Belsky has some ideas and tools on shipping....

I have ranted often about the hazards of cause marketing without transparency. But the fact is, there are plenty of campaigns that manage to be successful without much transparency. Plenty still cling to the obsolete language, “a portion of the proceeds,’ and do just fine. Get Away Today , a family vacation travel agency uses just that language when describing its donations to Children’s Miracle Network How does that work? Am I wrong about the necessity of transparency? Maybe it’s more of a nicety than a requirement, like Skull Candy earbuds with your new iPhone or stopping by in Maui after staying in Kaua’i. Case in point is the back page of a small brochure that came stuffed in my credit union statement earlier this month from Get Away Today (GAT). GAT is a privately-owned travel agency with billings of about $50 million a year which built its business booking Disneyland vacation packages for families, although it now books to all kinds of non-Disney destinations as well. Only Disne...

The grand-daddy of all buy one, give one (BOGO) cause marketing is TOMS Shoes , which I've profiled in the past. TOMS gives away a pair of its alpargatas-style shoes when your buy a pair. TOMS has never advertised heavily, but so great was the buzz that TOMS generated that its founder, Blake Mycoskie, was featured in TV ad on the left for AT&T. I've also profiled BOGO efforts from HUGO Fragrances , Pampers , LJ Urban which built a house in Burkina Faso when you bought one of their homes in Sacramento, a solar charger called Solio that provided a match for a soldier serving abroad when you bought another. On April 1, 2009, I even ran a post saying that India's Tata Motors was doing a BOGO for their $2,500 Nano car. It was an April Fool's Day joke that no one ever called me on. I now confess now that I made up the whole thing. These next BOGOs, however, are no joke. Buy a men’s tie, either a necktie or bowtie, from Figs and they’ll send a school uniform to a school...

It's rare to see national television ads for cause marketing. But since January I count three: Disney Parks' efforts to encourage volunteerism, utilizing the Muppets. Outback Steakhouse's campaign for Operation Homefront. American Express's ad with Yvon Chouinard on behalf of their Member's Project campaign. Of the three, I appreciate Disney's ads (there are several versions) the most because they feature an emotion aside from earnestness. But I'd love to get your feedback. So I've set up a poll in the column to the immediate right. Please follow the links to view the ads and vote for the one you prefer. The poll closes in a month.

Electrolux is back with perky daytime talker Kelly Ripa just in time for Earth Day. The most interesting wrinkle in this year’s campaign is a kind of virtual paper icon campaign for the benefiting charity, Global Green USA. The money is donated by Electrolux a dollar at a time to Global Green USA ’s green schools initiative when you virtually plant a flower. KaBOOM , the nonprofit playground builder, convinced two-time Dancing With the Stars winner Julianne Hough (who spent part of her growing up years just a few miles from where I live) to pony up $100,000 for charity. The donation is also released a dollar at a time when you enter photos and descriptions of playgrounds in your neighborhood. Notably ecumenical, the $100K goes not to KaBOOM, but to six other charities like Jumpstart , First Book , YMCA , etc. There’s also a contest element to meet Hough. ( The picture to the left comes from juliannehough.com) Portland, Oregon-based fashion e-tailer saraseven.com launched with the p...

The Reputation Institute and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship recently released their list of the top 50 companies in the United States in terms of corporate social responsibility. In the survey of public opinion, the top ten were: Google Campbell Soup Johnson & Johnson Walt Disney Kraft Foods General Mills Levi Strauss UPS Berkshire Hathaway Microsoft I took the list and ranked the 50 according to the amount of cause marketing that I’m aware of from each company. 0 meant that I had never seen any cause marketing from them. 1 meant I’m aware of cause marketing promotions about once a year. 2 meant I’m aware of perhaps two cause marketing promotions a year. 3 meant I’m aware of perhaps monthly cause marketing promotions in a year. 4 meant I’m aware of the company’s cause marketing as often as once a week 5 meant I'm aware of cause marketing from the company on a daily basis. Of the 50 companies, the only one I was unaware of was Express Scripts, a pharmacy s...