Cause Marketing

I beat up Outdoor Research pretty badly in yesterday’s post for promoting its sponsorship of the nonprofit charity Leave No Trace so inconspicuously that it could scarcely be seen. Already I’ve been getting blowback for being too sharp in my criticism. Others have asked, in effect, “alright Mr. Smart Guy, how should sponsors promote their cause relationships when the ad itself isn’t primarily about the cause?” It’s easy to understand this sentiment. I suspect that Outdoor Research's advertising budget is modest. No one, least of all me, blames a small company for adding one of its long time causes… Leave No Trace… to its existing advertising. By and large its bigger companies... like Proctor & Gamble and Coke... with fat advertising budgets that feature only their chosen cause. The effort at left from Pure Protein Bar manages to balance its ad with the logo of its preferred cause just fine. The ad is about making better food choices, not Multiple Sclerosis. But no one would l...

Maybe it’s the old school Barry White I’m listening to as I write this, but size matters in cause marketing. (And don’t go there all you with dirty minds. I mean only that Barry was a sizable man and thereby able to attain certain vocal dynamics in the bass range that men of lesser stature could not). I was reminded of this when I saw this ad for Outdoor Research in Outdoor USA Magazine , a trade publication that I picked up at the Winter 2011 Outdoor Retailers trade show. Outdoor USA Magazine is tabloid sized and printed on matte paper. This ad for Outdoor Research , a 27-year-old outdoor gear company, is roughly 10.25” x 15.85. Down there in the bottom third of ad, beneath the fold, past the body copy Outdoor Research declares its solidarity for its nonprofit partner, Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, whose logo is reproduced approximately .57” x .48”. To put it another way, Outdoor Research’s ad is about 162 square inches. Of that space, Outdoor Research trumpets Leave No ...