Cause Marketing

Torque MMA , a supplier of apparel and mats to the mixed martial arts community, has developed a three-part cause marketing promotion that may be exactly what the doctor ordered for cause marketers everywhere. In the past, I’ve been critical of cause marketing efforts that front-load all their promotional efforts. In May 2012 I wrote about a cause marketing promotion benefiting The Prostate Cancer Charity from UK retailer Marks & Spencer and which sold underwear endorsed by prominent UK sportsmen. Later, as the cause cooled and the merchandise grew stale, Marks & Spencer begin to discount the underwear in stores and online. Here’s what I wrote : In a case like this where there’s a celebrity component, here’s a thought; hold back some of the promotion for later. Promotions… cause marketing and otherwise… tend to be front-loaded and rightfully so. You have to develop the momentum to see you through the promotion and the best way to do that is to go as big as you can right fro...

Last year Cinnabon wanted to straighten out the mess of location venues listed on Foursquare and Facebook Places, and cause marketing helped the company achieve excellent results. Cinnabon was active on both Foursquare and Facebook Places, but the venue listings were something of a mess. Cinnabon makes cinnamon rolls and other sweet-smelling treats meant to tempt as you walk through the mall, airport concourse, or other high-traffic locales. That's one of their pecan-caramel tempters at the left. Because of duplicates or bad GPS coordinates many Cinnabon locations showed poorly in Foursquare search results. To correct that, the company determined to undertake ‘venue optimization.’ “Venue optimization creates one location that would be checked into most often, and that increases your visibility on Foursquare,” Cinnabon’s corporate communications manager Rachel Hadley told the Nation’s Restaurant News earlier this month. “If there are 10 other venues for that location with a few chec...