Cause Marketing

Three different cause marketing efforts worth calling your attention to. On Friday, Nov. 16 participating Menchies will donate 10 percent of sales to the American Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy relief. Menchies is a self-serve frozen yogurt chain with about 230 locations across the globe. “Like the rest of the nation, we are deeply moved and feel we have a responsibility to be supportive in helping those impacted by the devastation Hurricane Sandy caused,” said Amit Kleinberger, CEO of Menchie's Group Inc in a press release. The campaign is activated via in-store promotional materials and public relations. Somali-born fashion model Ubah Hassan (that’s her at the left) and a partner have launched a line of umbrellas called Maji that generate a donation sufficient to provide water for 20 people in the Horn of Africa, a drought-torn region that includes Somalia. The umbrellas, in silver/black and blue/gold, are $40 at the Maji website . The charity partner is Oxfam America. The ca...

At the yet-to-open Shebeen Bar in Melbourne, Australia when you order a beer or wine from a developing country, a donation will be made to a cause in the drink’s country of origin. So toast someone with a Vietnamese beer at Shebeen and perhaps a kid in Vietnam learns a marketable skill. Raise a glass of South African chardonnay and maybe a microfinance donation is made to help someone start a street cart business in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. The social benefit business is the brainstorm of 27-year-old Simon Griffiths, who came up with the idea while traveling through Africa. The idea is not about guilting people into Shebeen bar, Griffiths told the Melbourne daily newspaper, The Age . (The photo of Griffiths at left comes from The Age .) “We are moving away from the Oxfam tin-rattling approach to retail to a space where we create high-quality products and services and make them non-profit.” Griffiths is wonderfully ambitious. Using what some call ‘embedded giving’ social entrepren...

Is ‘Any Charity’ As Good as One Charity? My posting about 505 Green Chile Sauce talked about how a company might go about picking a suitable charity to partner with in a cause-related marketing campaign. My posting on Firedog Across America revealed a study which shows that customers respond best to CRM campaigns when causes and companies are well-matched. But what if you’re a bank and have all kinds of different customers who aren’t tightly segmented, but want to try your hand at cause-related marketing? Couldn’t you get away with supporting not just one charity with a cause-related marketing campaign, but ‘any charity?’ Illustrated is an ad for Irwin Union Bank , an Indiana bank with branches in nine states. Here’s the offer: When you open a new certificate of deposit with $10,000 or more, the bank will make a donation of $50 in your name to the charity of your choice. So if you’re fan of Oxfam , Environment Defense , the local homeless shelter, or your church’s missionary work in ...