Cause Marketing

Back in April 2013 I wrote about Panera Bread Company’s groundbreaking Meal of Responsibility, a nutritious bowl of turkey chili with 850 calories that invited people to pay for it what they could afford. Last week the company reported that they’ve pulled the menu item and are retooling it. At the time I wrote “Here’s my problem: helping out can be very intoxicating, especially when you’re good at it, as Panera is. But as I often say in this space, generous people are no good to causes if they give until they’re broke. Cause marketers need sponsors that are cash cows. That is, companies that have a sustainable business model that can be ‘milked’ regularly. Before Panera, everybody’s poster-child for progressive corporate social responsibility was Timberland, the shoe and apparel company. But after riding high through much of the 1980s and 1990s, Timberland’s product line grew a little stale in the double-aughts. Growth stalled. Facing rising material costs and lower profit marg...

This is awkward, but I have a bone to pick with Panera Bread Company, which along with its franchisees, operates 1,652 bakery-cafes under three different names. As a cause marketer, what could I possibly have to complain about Panera? The company has a menu full of organic ingredients, including antibiotic-free chicken. Many of their stores give away unsold bread every night to food banks where they operate. The company just launched a new Facebook campaign called Food Chain Reaction that will donate up to 500,000 bowls of their black bean soup to the hungry through Feeding America. And they do all this and are still first rate operators. I’ve never had a bad meal at a Panera. Moreover, they just launched in Boston their fifth nonprofit Panera Cares Community Café, which would have been called a soup kitchen 20 years ago. Panera Cares Cafes feed people regardless of their ability to pay, although their business model very much requires paying customers. Panera is a company that truly ...