Cause Marketing

Henkel’s, the German consumer packaged goods company whose brands in America include Right Guard and Purex, is back again with its Get Kids Fit campaign effort and “one lucky school will win $25,000 in fitness cash to improve youth fitness at their school.” You read that right, the total payout is $25,000 and it all goes to one school. Here’s how it works : There’s a self-nomination procedure. You submit an essay with the answer to this question: “How could $25,000 be used to improve fitness, inspire self-esteem, and build teamwork at your school?” If your school gets past the first round, Henkel asks you to submit a video. The top finalists are voted on by the public, meaning the $25,000 winner is the school that does the best job of getting out the vote. In the past, I’ve defended sponsors who spent more on a promotion than they give to their benefiting cause. And, in most cases, I’d still defend it. That’s because if my cause is, say, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, I’d be glad to...

Henkel, the large German consumer products and adhesives company has come in for some criticism in these pages for stingy cause marketing payouts and even bad copyediting. I’ve got more criticism this time out, only of the constructive variety. Through the end of September 2011 Henkel is running a contest to find the best ideas to improve school fitness in America and get a shot at three $10,000 prizes awarded to one elementary, one middle, and one high school. Here’s how it works: Enter your school at Henkelhelps.com. Then work your social network to get the most votes from the public. The cause is called Alliance for a Healthier Generation , founded by the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation. The mission of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation is to “Help cultivate a healthier generation of children today so that we will have a healthier America tomorrow.” The Alliance keeps a database of fitness approaches on its website. Large cash prizes...

In every bad cause marketing campaigns, ads and research I’ve autopsied this year I’ve tried to find something to praise. This is in stark contrast to the postmortems they do on all those CSI-style dramas that air on TV nearly nonstop in the States these days. You’d never hear this dialogue on any of those shows: “How did he die, doc?” “Well, he ate a high fiber diet that kept his blood cholesterol in a very healthy range. And it looks like he had the resting heart rate of Tour de France champion. But I’d say it was the bullet to his heart that killed him.” But in the interest of fairness, I tried to do just that in 2008. Right now, though, in the interest of brevity, I'm just going to be snarky. I couldn’t believe the little ad I saw in Cookie magazine for a fundraiser for startup charity called  Cookies for Kids Cancer . The headline read: “But a Cookie, Save a Life.” As I wrote then, “my reaction was, ‘Oh no they just didn’t!’ The ad was one of seven on a single page; the ...

Less doesn’t always mean less. Sometimes in life there’s an inverse relationship between resources and creativity. For instance, Einstein didn’t need the Large Hadron Collider to figure out relativity. Then again, sometimes less is less. And that’s certainly true of this promotion from Henkel. This doubletruck FSI page from August 10, 2008 is more a promotion than a cause-related marketing campaign. But there is a cause element. The page features pictures of kids heading back to school and promises that some lucky school is going to win $25,000. School cause-related marketing in the United States is a well-trod path. Both Campbell’s and General Mills do it to great effect. Henkel could do a whole lot worse than emulate either one. The promotion is not tied to sales of any of Henkel’s products. Rather it’s contest driven. You point your Internet browser to henkelhelps.com and write a 200-500 word essay on what your school could do with that lone prize. For one school $25,000 is a me...

On this blog my job is to highlight and dissect the best and worst cause marketing campaigns and creative. Today the campaign in question edges closer to the latter than the former. This campaign by Dial/Henkel… whose tagline is “A Brand Like a Friend”… is cute enough, but what the FSI needs is a friendly copy editor. In July, soap-maker The Dial Corporation ran this FSI, which features Dial’s corporate parent Henkel, a German conglomerate. The campaign asked people to submit a 200-word essay to Dial/Henkel to help with a neighborhood cleanup. The winner was Lorrie G. of Gainesville, Texas who wrote: "In June Gainesville, TX made national news. Our community was devastated with a horrific flood. We are still cleaning it up. We had 2 children and one adult die because of the flood. We have a small zoo. There were no animals killed, but it did flood the landscape, especially the children’s educational center. Most was lost. Most of the city’s parks were right by the creeks that floo...