Cause Marketing

To get into Harvard, jewelry designer Joan Hornig made a deal not with the devil, but with her better angels : if she got in, she told herself, by the time she was 50 she would give away all her earnings to charity. She does just that with her eponymous jewelry line sold on her website and at retail outlets like Bergdorf Goodman. Like other ‘ all benefits ’ companies, 100 percent of her profits… year-round… are donated to charity. When you purchase it online, you designate where you’d like the donation to go. Hornig also does exclusive lines for retailers that benefit predetermined charities. For instance the earrings above are from her Snowflake line at Bergdorf, which benefited UNICEF.  Hornig's jewelry is priced in the ‘if you gotta ask, you can’t afford it’ range. It goes without saying that not everyone could manage this. Town & Country  magazine reports that Hornig is independently wealthy. But the appeal to would-be consumers is mighty. How easy it would be...