Cause Marketing

U.S. Census figures put ecommerce at 5.1 percent of total retail sales in the second quarter of 2012, up from 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Almost everyone see etail’s percentage of total retail sales doubling and even trebling in the next three to five years. Naturally a lot of cause marketing has migrated to etail as well. However, rare is the etail cause marketing promotion that really makes good use of the Internet’s many powers. It’s like running a TV commercial, but without using any sound. Or, showing a blockbuster on 25 percent of the movie screen. This campaign by Chicbuds.com, which sells earbuds and this cute little powered speaker for your mobile device for $40 called a fauvette. During October, 2012, 20 percent of the sale of each bedazzled fauvette… or $8… goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Fauvette, in French, means a small singing bird, like a nightingale or a warbler. These fauvettes come bedazzled with crystals in pink, black and gold, ...

Like the look and feel of a webpage? Well copyright laws notwithstanding, nothing could be easier to steal. Open the webpage’s source code and there it all is. From a distance it looks like Dannon Yogurt’s newish label campaign benefiting the National Breast Cancer Foundation opened the source code to Yoplait’s longstanding effort for Susan G. Komen for the Cure and just copied and pasted. Both benefit breast cancer charities. The donation amount… $0.10 is the same. The pink ribbons on each are similar, as are the labels in question. The only real difference is that Dannon is redeemed via an online method and Yoplait requires you to mail the labels to a physical address. It seems like a defensive measure on Dannon’s part. In one fell swoop, Dannon made Yoplait’s cause marketing effort slightly generic. Of course, that’s a two-edged sword because it made Dannon’s yogurt cause marketing slightly generic, too. To continue the source code metaphor, there are webpage designers who take sour...

Wednesday morning I had a cup of pink-topped Yoplait Strawberry-Mango yogurt for breakfast. When I mail in that top, along with the others we’ve collected, General Mills will make a $0.10 donation per lid to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I stopped at my grocer’s deli and picked up a little smoked turkey. The lady at the counter was wearing a pink hat with Komen’s version of the pink ribbon, but like all the versions of the pink ribbon, emblematic of the fight against breast cancer. There was a counter card saying that Boar’s Head deli product supports Komen . Later I was looking for one of those clear film protectors for my phone and I came across a local firm that sells just the thing. Oh, and they’re donating 5% of online sales in October to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. If I had done all the above on Sunday or Monday instead of Wednesday, I could also have listed the pink ribbons wrapped around the goalposts and players on the NFL games I saw. This is October, National Bre...