Cause Marketing

Wired magazine’s website has an intriguing story about the ways fanboys and girls of Dr. Who , Harry Potter , Star Wars , and others actively support charities. But how might your cause tap the support of these self-described geeks? Chapters of the 501st Legion, whose members dress as characters from Star Wars for events, donate their honorarium for their appearances to charities. The Harry Potter Alliance does work for children’s hospitals. Wordbuilders, an organization started and maintained by fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss, has raised $1.7 million for Heifer International over the last four years. Current Dr. Who star Matt Smith made an appearance in character on the UK’s Red Nose Day telethon. So how do seek and utilize the support of the geeks for your cause? Here’s three suggestions: If you don’t already speak the language of the target group, try immersion. A colleague hated NASCAR until her fundraising job at a children’s hospital in Tennessee forced to learn more abo...

Over the last few years I’ve profiled about a dozen or so variations on a theme of ‘Buy One Give One’ (BOGO). But at the Outdoor Retailer Show that wrapped up Saturday, August 6, 2011 I found a new favorite. Footwear company Oboz , which is a contraction of the words Outside-Bozeman specializes in shoes and boots true to its Montana roots. Their BOGO cause marketing is a straightforward and appealing; buy a pair of Oboz and the company will plant a tree. What’s unusual is the benefiting cause, called Trees for the Future. Headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, Trees for the Future thinks of trees much the same way that Heifer International thinks about domesticated animals; that is, as a provider of wealth for people in the developing world. Trees for the Future plants trees that can become a source of wealth to local families. Think about it, in addition to the environmental benefits of trees they also provide fruits and nuts, fuel, sap, windbreaks, shade, fertilizer, f...

By now cause-related marketing has penetrated almost every kind of market. Here’s more proof that cause-related marketing finding a home at the high end : when you buy a rug from Dan Golden Inc., a New York City designer and maker of high-end hand-tufted wool rugs, the company will buy a sheep for a family in a developing country from Oxfam . Golden’s work, which is sometimes in the form of the cheeky ‘rug-cartoon’ like the piece on the left and sometimes more straightforward, sell at retail starting around $3,000 and range north of $13,000 depending on the size. The Dan Golden website is, naturally, rather artsy and the mention of the campaign is quite subtle . But that befits the audience and the artist. Since Golden’s rugs are made of sheep’s wool, a sheep is the right animal to donate. It can be sheared and the wool sold or bartered. Sheep can also be milked. The cause, too, is a good fit even though Oxfam is not known primarily for its animal donation efforts. Heifer International...