The horrendous 2011 Tōhoku earthquake struck Japan at 2:46 pm local time on Friday, March 11, 2011. On Thursday, March 17, 2011, not even six days later when you consider that Japan is a day ahead of North America, I received the appeal to the left in my email box. This is instant-on cause marketing , and I applaud it. We saw similar efforts after the Haiti Earthquake in January 2010. I can imagine how challenging this was to put together so quickly. Infiniti had to figure out an amount they could afford and would be meaningful. The choice of the Red Cross was probably pretty easy. The Red Cross is almost the default choice in the case of natural disasters like this. But easy choice or not, arrangements had to be made with the Red Cross. Then Infiniti had to figure out who to send it to. I’m on some kind of email newsletter list because I once test drove a G Convertible , but it probably also went to Infiniti employees, dealers, car owners, members of the press, etc. The last piece of...
Dedicated to highlighting and dissecting the best and the worst cause marketing promotions and campaigns.