Cause Marketing

Mae West famously said that “too much of a good thing is... wonderful.” But is it? A female friend forwarded me a recent ‘moms’ e-newsletter she got about a week ago. It had the expected content but the bottom was lined with four products ‘for the cure;’ shower gel for the cure, a CD with Amy Grant for the cure, fantasy bubble bath for the cure, and a sketchbook for the cure. All offering ‘100 percent of the net proceeds’ for breast cancer research. She made the point that now, near the end of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, she’s a little ‘pinked out.’ I can see her point. In magazines, with their long calendars, the editorial and the advertising for Breast Cancer Awareness Month might start in September or even August. The last notices of breast cancer awareness might appear in November. It’s less true of the electronic media like TV or the Internet, but still that’s as many as four months of pink ribbons. In that time there’s hundreds of events, thousands of pink themed cause-markete...