Cause Marketing

One of the topics broached at the Cause Marketing Academy a few weeks back in Phoenix is was what a sponsor with operations outside North America should do if its preferred cause stateside doesn’t really have operations abroad, which is true of all but a select few charities. The obvious answer is that you work with causes abroad that follow a like theme; children’s health, or animal welfare. Then we went down the rabbit hole on treasury issues, requisite disclosure in multiple countries, currency exchanges, and all kinds of legal headaches. Then there’s the issues of coordinating the marketing across multiple languages and cultures. Sponsors can be forgiven is they just throw up their hands at the thought of some kind of unified cause marketing effort that takes place at roughly the same time in multiple countries. Or, you could just call one of the causes associated with the UN and be done with it. That’s what two luxury brands, TAG Heuer of Switzerland and Mont Blanc of Ge...

The May 2011 issue of Conde Naste Traveler magazine has the rather unusual distinction of having two cause marketing efforts advertised literally back to back, both of which feature actors who have played James Bond. The first ad, from the luxury-goods manufacturer and style-setter Louis Vuitton , has been around for a few years and features the best Bond, Sean Connery. The benefiting cause is The Climate Project , founded by Nobel Laureate Al Gore. In the second ad current Bond Daniel Craig pitches Omega , the Swiss watchmaker. The Omega ad calls attention to the cause Orbis International , which flies a hospital plane into the developing world to perform essential eye surgeries where it lands. Both ads are short on the specifics of the cause marketing they’ve engaged in. But that’s par for the course when luxury goods utilize cause marketing. Instead the most prominent elements of both ads are their respective Bonds, their exclusive brands, and their tie to the causes. Oh, and the V...