Cause Marketing

Every year tens of thousands of teens go to the prom and when it’s done the boys take their tuxes back to the rental shop and the girls tuck their prom dresses into the back of their closets. A number of grassroots organizations have sprung up to get prom, quinceañera and other special occasion dresses out of the closets and on to the backs of girls who might not otherwise be able to afford a fancy dress for their special night. Hearst, the publisher of Seventeen magazine, has a website called Donatemydress.org , to serve as a kind of national information clearinghouse for girls looking to donate or receive donations of special occasion dresses. As far as causes go, passing on prom dresses to girls who can’t afford them isn’t exactly curing cancer or feeding the hungry. But it is a wonderfully romantic idea. And I don’t mean romantic in the sense of horny teens in the back seat of a limo. I mean it in the sense of idealism. It’s exactly the kind of idea that might really catch hold i...