Cause Marketing

You know me, I love cause marketing. Almost any company, but especially those that face the consumer , could benefit from it. But it rubs me wrong when I see humungous companies going cheap on the cause marketing donation amount. In this ad from a recent Martha Stewart Living magazine Georgia Pacific is trumpeting their donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Since 2004, the ad says, Georgia Pacific has donated $675,000 to Komen through efforts tied to their Vanity Fair napkin brand. Assuming that doesn’t include the 2010 donation, that’s an average of $112,500 a year. In 2010, the ad says, that donation will be $50,000. Having never seen the Vanity Fair campaign, I can’t say if it’s a transaction-based cause marketing campaign or not. But the nice round number of $50,000 tells me that for this year at least it’s a straightforward donation. There are companies around the country that would write a check for $50,000 and wouldn’t even go to the effort to issue a press release about it....