Cause Marketing

Right now best-selling author and financial advice doyenne Suze Orman is appearing in ads on behalf of the QVC Channel’s annual Fashion Footwear Association of New York (FFANY) shoe event, which benefits cancer research. Now in its 18th year, the FFANY event takes place Thursday, October 13, 2011 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. FFANY’s website reports that the event has sold more than a million pairs of shoes and generated more than $35 million for a variety of cancer charities. The Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database has images of past spokespeople including Fergie, Jessica Simpson and Reba McEntire. The ads appear in women’s magazines including Cosmo , Elle , O, the Oprah Magazine , TV Guide , and elsewhere. I spotted this one in Redbook . Usually the creative in the ads touches on the personal connection the celebrity has to cancer. But for Suze Orman the creative is an explicit seal of approval. The headline reads, “You’re Approved,” which is plainly a riff on the...

You can’t swing a corded mouse online without running into the daytime double-threat actress/talk show host Kelly Ripa and her work on behalf of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund . I get, it seems like, weekly email notices from Electrolux telling me to visit the ‘ Lemonade Stands ,’ of OCRF supporters. The Lemonade Stands are the charity part of a broader Kelly Ripa-powered promotion for Electrolux curiously called ‘ Kelly Confidential .’ The Stands represent an intriguing variation on virtual paper icons for MDA that I’ve profiled before. To support the stands you’re asked to donate amounts from $1 (the default) to $50. The donations are processed through Paypal. When you open a stand, Electrolux will donate the first $1. There's also a win a refrigerator contest element when you open a stand. Electrolux will donate up to a total maximum of $15,000 for the lemonade campaign. That is, just the first 15,000 stands get the $1 donation. Electrolux’s total pledge to OCRF is $500,000. ...