Cause Marketing

The electrons were barely dry on yesterday’s post about cause marketing and Fortune’s ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ list when I got an email from a friend in the outdoor business. ‘What about us?’ she asked. Indeed Outside magazine also publishes an annual list of the ’ 50 Best Places to Work .’ Outside’s list is based on surveys of employee benefits, compensation, policies, job satisfaction, environmental initiatives, community-service programs and more. More than either the Fortune list or the list from Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, Outside’s list is made up of very small companies. Take away Eddie Bauer and Chesapeake Energy and no other company on the list has even 1,000 employees. Not surprisingly because of the emphasis that Outside puts on community service and environmental initiatives, this list also features a number of firms that do cause marketing. By my count, four of the top ten and 23 overall use cause marketing as a part of their marketing mix....

Fortune magazine just published its annual “ 100 Best Companies to Work for ” list and I wondered, how many of these companies are also known for their cause marketing? Regular readers know that I have found a strong correlation between the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship 2011 CSR Index and whether or not the company was active in cause marketing. By my reckoning six of the BCCCC CSR List made the top ten and 33 of the 50 companies listed did at least some cause marketing. Fortune’s ‘100 Best’ list is a little trickier when it comes to cause marketing. Cause marketing almost always faces the consumer, but a good number of companies on Fortune’s list are B2B. There’s several law firms for instance, and multiple energy companies and construction firms. Moreover, Fortune’s list includes a number of companies that are either regional in their focus or otherwise unfamiliar to me. Which is another way of saying that they may be cause marketers and I just don’t know about it....

The current issue of Fortune magazine, modestly called 'The Future Issue,' examines what the world and the world of business will be like ten years hence in 2022. Fortune’s prognosticators see video projected on every window surface, 3-D printers on every desktop, smart holographic table tops as in the movie Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol , real-time subtitles for teleconferences, and apps that help you put together your ideal office work group. (That's an Eden 3D printer on the left, although it's not exactly a desktop model.) Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of nonprofits, although Fortune does see people working later in life thanks to new miracle drugs and treatments for chronic conditions like arthritis. Great, I get to work for years to come! But it set me to thinking; what’s the 10-year future of cause marketing, nonprofit fundraising and corporate social responsibility? I put on my Merlin cap and came up with these three ideas: Big Data and Cause Ma...

In an interview yesterday a reporter asked me why the match between the cause and sponsor is so vital in cause marketing. After all, what if a local welding shop in a small town was doing some kind of cause marketing for the local school. Wouldn’t that be affinity enough? My response went something like this: If you live a place where everyone knows your name it’s OK if the match between your firm and the cause is imperfect. People know your heart and are willing to give you a pass, whether or not they understand your cause marketing promotion. But if you live in a population center where not everyone you do business with is an acquaintance, then the match between your company and the cause matters a lot. My theory is that people just aren’t willing to invest the psychic energy it takes to figure out a lose affiliation between your company and the cause. The ad at the left from Fortune magazine is a case in point. The daredevil billionaire Sir Richard Branson, whose net worth is an est...

Outdoor advertising companies have an expression about signs that are so busy the message can’t be taken in one glance. They call such signs, ‘park and reads.’ The usual rule of thumb for billboard is that they have no more than 8-10 words and fewer than 4 lines of text. Total. But of course many people either don’t know or think the rule doesn’t apply to them. You see such signs all the time, although the one below probably has a subject matter you’ve never before seen on a billboard. The ad above, from the March 31, 2011 Fortune magazine, is a park and read from the fashion designer Geoffrey Beene. The ad features Ann and Nancy Wilson of the 70s and 80s rock group Heart along with two cancer researchers, Marion Knott, MD, PhD and Raymond DuBois, MD, PhD. There’s no arguing with the intent of this PSA campaign or the sincerity of GBGB (Geoffrey Beene Gives Back) from Geoffrey Beene, LLC. All profits from operations fund a wide array of philanthropic endeavors. GBGB is basically Newma...

The printed edition of Fortune Magazine runs a regular feature called ‘My Metric’ wherein business leaders identify informal but telling measures of current economic activity. In the January 17, 2011 Michael Glimcher , CEO of Glimcher Realty Trust cited as his metric an increased number of black cars on the streets of New York City as a sign of the U.S. economy’s (still pending?) resurgence. That got me thinking, what unconventional metrics evidence the power of certain cause marketing efforts? One immediately leapt to mind, although only General Mills, which makes Yoplait yogurt in the U.S., can measure it. The Yoplait lid at left... which I purchased in December 2010... can NOT be redeemed for a $0.10 donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Instead it promotes Yoplait’s sponsorship of Komen’s Race for the Cure events, which are numerous. But I’d bet you a six-pack of Yoplait Greek Honey Vanilla that people nonetheless still send in some number of the lids above in an attempt to re...

When you buy a Target gift card worth $20 or more through December 4, the stylish discount retailer will donate $1 to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital up to $750,000. Since gift cards are basically stored-value cards and discount retailing has pretty thin margins, how could Target possibly afford to shed $1 out of every $20, even if it’s promotionally-appropriate given Target’s pledge to give 5% of income to charity? There are a couple of answers. First of all, this is a limited time offer, valid only November 28, 2010 through December 4, 2010, which is fitting since fully 35 percent of all gift cards are sold in November and December. But all that means is that Target is limiting its exposure, not that it’s necessarily making a sound business decision. The true answer has to do with the psychology of gift cards, which most of us treat like found money. If you go to Target and the Garmin Nuvi GPS you've had your eye is $99 and you’ve got $80 in Target gift cards, the extra $19...

A Business to Business Cause-Related Marketing Campaign that Brings Money & ROI... Part II Cause-related marketing isn't always about the consumer audience. Just as there are businesses that sell goods and services to other businesses (B2B), it is possible... though not always easy... to put together cause marketing campaigns where the cause transaction occurs between businesses (B2B Cause-Related Marketing©). The smartly-branded Memphis-based St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, has just such a B2B Cause-Related Marketing campaign going on right now with the BG Corporate Challenge . And unlike the countless walk-a-thons, bike-a-thons, eclair- eat-a-thons , etc., this one offers corporate participants real ROI. Read the second half of my interview with Holly Thompson... the Liaison-Sports Marketing & Sponsor Development, and the person in charge of the BG US Challenge at St Jude... to see how. As a reminder, what follows are paraphrased answers from Holly, NOT actua...

A Business to Business Cause-Related Marketing Campaign that Brings Money & ROI... Part I I’ve written before about what we at Alden Keene & Associates call B2B Cause-Related Marketing ©. That is, cause marketing that takes place between businesses rather than between business and consumers. B2B Cause-Related Marketing can be more challenging because of the issue of money. It’s relatively easy for a cause marketer to put together a CRM campaign with a physical good that’s sold to a consumer. But where does the money come from in when the CRM exchange takes place between two businesses? Memphis-based St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is currently running a dynamite B2B Cause-Related Marketing campaign that turns the standard walk-a-thon on its ear. And it does so while building corporate teams and affinity between corporate America and St. Jude. It’s called the BG US Challenge . You may have seen the ad above for the Challenge in Fortune magazine. I spoke last week with Holl...