Cause Marketing

Last Friday I extolled the many virtues of the pink ribbon. But the ‘open source’ nature of the pink ribbon ain’t all sweet yogurt and tasty lunch meats. When everybody owns the ribbon nobody owns it and the result is that news coverage, like that at the left from NBC Nightly News on Sunday, October 17 ends up celebrating everything but the charity. The piece leads with Washington Redskins Tight End Chris Cooley, whose mother Nancy was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2008, and was treated with chemotherapy. The reporter, Peter Alexander, covers Cooley's feelings, Nancy's stiff upper lip in the face of the disease, an effort led by Cooley and his wife, and some of Cooley's Redskins teammates to brighten the lives of women in the Washington, D.C. area recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Alexander mentions that the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is in its twenty-fifth year. We learn about the NFL being behind the pinkness in the pro football locker rooms, a...

Following General Mills’ lead , Campbell’s Labels for Education is rebranding so as to be more appealing to would-be partners. “The logo was very heavily Campbell-branded,” Mike Salzberg, president, Campbell Sales, told Brandweek. “We’ve never gone outside as far as sharing it or getting partners. But now we believe there is an opportunity for partnerships, starting with the one we formed with the Grammy Foundation.” (The logo on the left is the old one. When I get the new one I'll share it). With this new ‘open source cause marketing’ approach Campbell is doubling down in the bad economy. “In a troubled economy, being able to collect and win any free stuff in places where they’re taking things away [works],” says Salzberg. Now in its 36th year, Labels for Education has generated more than $110 million in goods and supplies for the nation’s schools. About 75 percent of the nation’s schools participate in Labels for Education. Campbell’s renewed effort underscores something I’ve wri...

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...

Yeah, You Read it Right. It's a Top 8 List. More cause-related marketing campaigns are unveiled every day across the world than I review in a year at the cause-related marketing blog. And, frankly, I don’t see very many campaigns from outside North America. So I won’t pretend that my annual list of the top cause-related marketing campaigns is exhaustive. But, like any other self-respecting blogger, I won’t let my superficial purview stop me from drawing my own tortured conclusions! So… cue the drumroll (and the dismissive snickers)… without further ado, here is my list of the eight best cause-related marketing campaigns of 2007. My list of the worst cause-related marketing campaigns of 2007 follows on Thursday. Chilis and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital I was delighted by the scope of Chilis’ campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As you walked in you saw the servers adorned in black co-branded shirts. Other elements included message points on the Chilis beverage...

Back in August I wrote about something I termed ‘ open source cause-related marketing .’ In it I described how “in effect General Mills had opened up the ‘source code’ to non-competing brands” to its well-executed Boxtops for Education campaign. With Breast Cancer Awareness Month in full flower in the United States, it’s apparent that there’s a second kind of open source cause marketing going on… ‘open-source charity icons.’ I’ve written skeptically about charities using colored ribbons ; some colors of ribbon are somehow meant to represent five or more different causes. But the ne plus ultra of colored ribbons in the U.S. is the pink ribbon, which signifies breast cancer awareness. That kind of brand awareness is enormously valuable. And yet a cursory glance at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office suggests that no one has registered pink ribbons. Oh, Susan G. Komen has trademarked the terms ‘pink ribbon regatta,’ ‘pink ribbon golf tourney,’ and ‘pink ribbon celebration.’ And the Nati...

Excuse me while I coin a phrase; “open source cause-related marketing.” In effect General Mills has turned its Box Tops for Education campaign into an open source cause marketing campaign. I realized this as I walked into Sam’s Club the other day and was handed the handbill above. On the front it details a small promotion for earning bonus Box Tops. On the backside it lists 33 items available in Sam’s Club that participate in Boxtops for Education. But here’s the kicker, they’re not all General Mills products. As I noted in my April 3, 2007 posting, General Mills opened up Box Tops to other non-competing brands in 2006. What wasn’t apparent to me then was the degree to which General Mills has pulled its own branding from the Box Tops campaign. Notice that General Mills name and logo are conspicuously absent from the Box Tops logo. If you go to the Box Tops for Education website you’ll find General Mills in the fact sheet. But otherwise its presence is largely confined to a small copyri...