Cause Marketing

Cause marketing is often directed at employees and other internally stakeholders. Cause marketing can help build employee morale and loyalty, improve employee productivity, skills and teamwork and produce a pipeline of future talent. One well-designed cause marketing effort that focuses closely on employee engagement comes from the Luxottica Group, the Italian eyewear company whose brands in the United States include Ray-Ban, Oakley and Revo along with retail outlets LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, and Pearle Vision. OneSight, founded by Luxottica in 1988, is a public 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that redistributes millions of eyeglasses a year in more than three dozen countries across the globe. The World Health Organization estimates that 314 million people suffer from poor but correctable vision. Luxottica says it funds most of OneSight’s administrative costs such that 92 percent of public donations go to fund programs. Luxottica offers employees the chance to volunteer…with pay…to work ...

What do people mean these days when they speak of corporate social responsibility? Does it mean extracting sea turtles out of fishing nets or not eating monoculture salmon? Does it mean not out-sourcing jobs to cheaper foreign lands even if it raises the standard of living in those places? What if the outsourced jobs go to foreign union members? A friend maintains that his H-1 Hummer, which he expects to drive for 20 years, has less negative effect on the environment than a shiny new Nissan Leaf, which will last only until its batteries die. Is he right? Is it more socially responsible for a company to donate to an AIDS orphan cause in Africa than to a ballet company in Africa? What if the ballet company in Africa employs AIDS victims or does a benefit for AIDS victims? Some of these questions are ethical questions and most of us aren't ethicists. So how are we supposed to navigate the thicket of sometimes competing and oftentimes perplexing conundrums framed as issues of corporate...

Cause marketing is often directed at employees and other internally stakeholders. Cause marketing can help build employee morale and loyalty, improve employee productivity, skills and teamwork and produce a pipeline of future talent. One well-designed cause marketing effort that focuses closely on employee engagement comes from the Luxottica Group , the Italian eyewear company whose brands in the United States include Ray-Ban, Oakley and Revo along with retail outlets LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, and Pearle Vision. OneSight, founded by Luxottica in 1988, is a public 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that redistributes millions of eyeglasses a year in more than three dozen countries across the globe. The World Health Organization estimates that 314 million people suffer from poor but correctable vision. Luxottica says it funds most of OneSight’s administrative costs such that 92 percent of public donations go to fund programs. Here’s a link to a list of OneSight’s extensive programs. Luxotti...

Tuesday evening, Paul Nelson, a local radio reporter called to ask about how to keep up employee morale during the downturn. ( Here's his finished story .) He'd seen on Slideshare a presentation on the topic I'd given in September to the Utah state convention of the Society for Human Resource Management. Between the presentation and my comments, I'll bet I gave him a half-dozen studies demonstrating that cause marketing can help companies improve employee morale, loyalty, profitability. skills, teamwork, etc. And then he asked me the most natural, obvious question imaginable. Why? Why would working with a charity help a company improve morale? I almost choked. No one has ever asked my why that would be. I'm a pundit so of course I had an answer for him... it's the quote he used in the story... but it wasn't based on any study I could name or even think of. So here's my question to you my faithful readers. Why can cause marketing help with employee moral...

This post is endorsed by 'President Barack Obama,' 'Oprah Winfrey,' 'Hillary Clinton,' 'Coldplay' and other high-ranking search terms in Google. The hope-filled inauguration of President Barack Obama yesterday morning means that 2009 is still dewy enough that we can talk about New Year’s resolutions. Professionally I set a series of goals each year including sales and profitability goals. I’ve also set a grand total of one professional New Year’s resolution. I resolve to spend more time evangelizing the advantages and benefits of cause marketing.  In the past I have contented myself to talk about the many positives of cause marketing with clients and on this blog. The blog is easy to find if you know the word ‘cause marketing.’ But not that many people know the expression or the ideas behind it. Google’s keyword search tool says that in December 2008 the search volume for the term cause marketing was 14,800 with another 4,400 for the search ter...