Cause Marketing

In the lead up to Independence Day in the United States, which commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, I spotted a handful of cause marketing wherein the ‘cause’ is a burgeoning new coalition of American servicemen and women, police officers, and firefighters. I’ve already posted on the Lowe’s/Pepsi nationwide co-branded effort that offered discounts to servicemen and women and their families, along with other benefits. And I’ve posted on studies that demonstrate how Americans right now are responsive to the needs of the members of the military and their families. Rather than revisit that effort at any length I want to concentrate on two local efforts that highlight this budding trend of lumping together firefighters and police with the military. In the first the local Toyota Dealers group offers Military, Fire, Police (MFP) a 10% discount off vehicle repair work, up to a maximum discount of $50. The offer was activated via a monthly direct mail p...

On monday, May 23, 2011 the post was about the current American zeitgeist for supporting the troops . The post on Thursday May 19, 2011 was about how cause marketing is a form of co-branding . Too bad I didn’t wait until today to post on those separate subjects because I could have killed two birds with one post. Yesterday I got the Lowe’s circular at left that features co-branded cause marketing with PepsiCo benefiting the troops. Called Summer Salute Program, here’s how it works: PepsiCo and Lowe’s will donate $1 million to unnamed charity or charities that support the troops and their families. Part of Pepsi’s piece of this includes their NASCAR drivers Jimmie Johnson (Gatorade), Jeff Gordon (Pepsi Max) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (AMP Energy/Mountain Dew), all of whom will run their cars with Summer Salute paint schemes. All are affiliated with the famed Hendrick Motorsports team. Johnson, of course, drives the Lowe’s car. To give the campaign a little more emotional depth, Lowe’s and P...

Since cause marketing usually faces the consumer, retailers are under pressure to engage in cause marketing campaigns for causes large and small. Necessarily this means that retailers say no to more cause partnerships than they say yes to. This is as it should be. There are a million or so 501(c)(3) nonprofit charities in the United States and only a thin slice of them are good matches for retail sponsors. That said, there are certainly many instances when a retailer could be well-matched with more than one cause. Indeed, some grocers do paper icon campaigns for MDA , Children’s Miracle Network , Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and others, albeit separated by several months. Witness this circular from Lowe’s that came to me yesterday. On the front page one of the on-sale items is an 18-piece tool kit, in pink because it benefit's Lowe's campaign for Habitat for Humanity, called ' Women Build .' Appropriately, Lowe’s supports Habitat for Humanity philanthropically...

When I saw this circular in yesterday’s mailbox from Lowe’s I was puzzled. It looks like cause marketing effort themed to Earth Day, but there was no further explanation anywhere in the circular. My first reaction was, “please, Lowe's, don’t do this on your own. You won’t get it right." A million tree giveaway in time for Earth Day oughta be done in partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation or with the charity American Forests . So I Googled ‘Lowe’s Million Tree Giveaway’ and low and behold Lowe’s IS partnered with American Forests. The press release went out Monday and it’s an admirable campaign. The million trees are indeed free from Lowe’s and optimized for your growing zone. You can point your smartphone at a 2D barcode on each tree bag to get tree facts, how to plant the sapling, how to care for it, and the like. The press release also says you can also register the sapling at lowes.com/earthday . Why would you want to register your tree? The press release says that reg...

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor...