Cause Marketing

Consider this cause marketing hypothetical. You’ve made your best cause marketing pitch to a would-be sponsor. It’s smart, strategically appropriate, and well activated across new media and old. You’re certain your prospect’s customers will get it and respond. But then a week goes by without hearing back from the prospect. So on day eight you call, but don’t press very hard. The prospect apologizes all over herself. Everybody back at corporate loves the proposal, she says. Trouble is, unbeknownst to the marketing staff, the CEO had promised a campaign to another cause. The marketing department doesn’t think they can or should do both this year. So sorry. Maybe next time. While you could play off of their guilt and press for a donation from the company foundation, instead you decide to offer a counter proposal. How about if all the company does is ask their customers for a straight ahead donation? I don’t know whether or not this is what happened with this effort from big box sports ret...

Remember your marketing class in college when the professor would show examples of consumer packaged goods that would tout ‘all new packaging!’ as though it were a genuine benefit? Well, over the last week or so the cause marketing blog has gone through a number of changes, courtesy of Charissa Wilson at Triple Latte Design . And while the colors are all-new, I think the improvements to the blog are more than skin-deep. First off, the blog is in a three-column design, which I think is easier on the eyes. Alden Keene’s definition of cause marketing is right up in the masthead, where you also see a bridge; a graphical representation of cause marketing. In the second column my contact information is front and center and we’ve added a RSS feed that finds and displays news and information with keywords like ‘cause marketing, ‘corporate social responsibility’ and ‘cause related marketing.’ At the top of the third column, on the far right side, is a feed of images of cause marketing c...