Cause Marketing

In Zen Buddhism there is the notion of a 'koan,' which is a riddle, statement, question or dialogue that can’t be understood through strictly rational thought. A koan is intended to help train the mind to better access intuition, especially through meditation The most famous koan might be ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping?’ Here’s one for cause marketers; ‘when is cause marketing not a partnership?’ The rational mind says that cause marketing is always a partnership. The riddle makes no sense. Except in cases where the sponsor is the cause there’s always at least two parties. Like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp or Scoreese and De Niro. Boom. There’s two parties and when they come together that’s a partnership. But meditate on it a little longer and you can see when cause marketing might not be a partnership. When one party benefits in gross disproportion to the other. Or when one party doesn’t work to make sure that the putative partner benefits to his or her satisfacti...

It can’t come to soon for those in Haiti, but cause marketers… including some from smaller entities… are using the power of cause marketing to support relief efforts in the earthquake battered country. What follows is a representative few. But it’s an important list because it demonstrates that you don’t have to be an A-list celebrity, like George Clooney and pals , to do your part. If you see more examples of cause marketing on behalf of Haiti and Haitians I hope you’ll either email me at aldenkeene @ gmail [dot] com or comment below. One of the most prominent examples comes from Zynga, creator of the virtual worlds and games including Farmville, Fishville, Zynga Poker, and Mafia Wars. When you certain buy virtual items from Zynga for use in those games, a donation is made to the U.N’s World Food Programme. The donation to Haiti relief efforts from Zynga users is already north of $1.5 million ! Paper Culture , an online stationary story, is donating “100 percent of all proceeds from i...