Cause Marketing

In the fall of 2012 the New York Attorney General’s office released Five Best Practices for Transparent Cause Marketing . The first one was “clearly describe the promotion.” We might assume that the AG was speaking only to marketers with malintent (to use the neologism). But being clear and understandable can also be a problem for marketers with good intent too. Case in point: This coming weekend June 28-29 Dave Matthews Band is doing a two-day concert at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, New Jersey. The promoter of the concert is Reverb, which is a 501(c)(3) with a mission to make concerts more sustainable. Reverb frequently partners with other nonprofits in the tours it promotes. For the Dave Matthews Band concert in Camden the nonprofit partner is the Food Bank of South Jersey. Reverb asks that fans bring non-perishable food with them to donate to the food bank. That’s a promotion we’ve all seen and can understand, right? But, amazingly, the press release issued by Reverb...

Back in October 2012 the office of New York State’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman released five “best practices” for conducting cause marketing in the Empire State. They accord to a remarkable degree what I’ve been telling clients for more than 10 years now and have written in the Cause Marketing blog since my first posts almost six and half years ago. But a local cause marketing promotion reinforced for me the fact that every year a new generation of marketers arises that, as the story in the Bible puts it , “knew not Joseph.” That is, they haven’t gotten the message yet about the right ways to do cause marketing. Here’s the AG’s guidelines as published : Clearly Describe the Promotion. Allow Consumers to Easily Determine Donation Amount. Be Transparent About What Is Not Apparent. Ensure Transparency in Social Media. Tell the Public How Much Was Raised. Let’s be clear that the AG’s guidelines don’t currently have the force of law. But if they did, any cause marketing offe...