Cause Marketing

With National Breast Cancer Awareness Month behind us, is not too soon to start talking about cause marketing and the next big holiday coming up, namely Super Bowl 2013. Rudolph Foods, which bills itself as the world’s largest manufacturer of pork rinds is celebrating Pork Rind Appreciation Day on Super Bowl Sunday, with a modest cause marketing campaign that features an oversized ambition. When you buy a package of Rudolph pork rinds, the company will make a $0.10 donation to Gridiron Greats, a nonprofit that provides medical and financial help to former NFL players and their families in dire need. The modest part is that the donation is capped at $10,000. That needs to be a bigger number. But I very much admire Rudolph Food’s ambition. Snack foods are a big part of the Super Bowl. But you could chew your way through a lot of advertising dollars trying to keep pace with the likes of Frito-Lay, the $13 billion snack foods division of PepsiCo. Heck, in its press releases Rudolph can’t...

On monday, May 23, 2011 the post was about the current American zeitgeist for supporting the troops . The post on Thursday May 19, 2011 was about how cause marketing is a form of co-branding . Too bad I didn’t wait until today to post on those separate subjects because I could have killed two birds with one post. Yesterday I got the Lowe’s circular at left that features co-branded cause marketing with PepsiCo benefiting the troops. Called Summer Salute Program, here’s how it works: PepsiCo and Lowe’s will donate $1 million to unnamed charity or charities that support the troops and their families. Part of Pepsi’s piece of this includes their NASCAR drivers Jimmie Johnson (Gatorade), Jeff Gordon (Pepsi Max) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (AMP Energy/Mountain Dew), all of whom will run their cars with Summer Salute paint schemes. All are affiliated with the famed Hendrick Motorsports team. Johnson, of course, drives the Lowe’s car. To give the campaign a little more emotional depth, Lowe’s and P...