Cause Marketing

Up there in the masthead of the blog is Alden Keene’s definition of cause marketing: “Cause marketing is a relationship that bridges commerce and cause in ways that benefit both parties.” There’s nothing in the definition about money changing hands, even if that’s how we typically think of cause marketing. Indeed, cause marketing is often configured so as to raise awareness. That’s the case in the campaign recently profiled in this space from Feeding America and featuring Laila Ali and Curtis Conway and that’s the case in this multi-faceted campaign from Becton, Dickenson and Company (BD), a $7.3 billion (sales) provider of medical instruments and supplies. BD’s website says it basically has two philanthropic approaches; donations of cash and product, and “raising awareness for a healthier world.” In 2009, BD gave $11 million , split evenly between in-kind product donations and cash donations. If I read the graphic correctly all the in-kind donations went to global humanitarian groups...

Feeding America , which generates donations of funds and food for affiliated food banks all over the country, wants you to spread the word to 10 other people about families in hunger in America, and when you do you could win the chance to present a check for $10,000 to your local food bank. The campaign is called Hunger Free Families and the spokespeople are Laila Ali and Curtis Conway. Curtis is a former NFL wide receiver and current color analyst for NFL radio broadcasts and Laila is a former boxing champion and the daughter of Muhammad Ali, who was something of a boxer himself. You go to the website , watch the videos, sign up and agree to send an email to 10 people… I choose the preformatted one, but I could have modified the language… to 10 people. This isn’t one of those deals that pulls out all your emails addresses out your Outlook or Yahoo account. That would be spam. I had to copy and paste them in one by one. After you send out the email, it takes you to a screen that allows...