Cause Marketing

There's just a few more donation days before Christmas for your local food bank... or Toys for Tots, or Sub for Santa, or the Salvation Army’s Giving Tree... and this ad that appeared in a Walgreen sales flyer in late November made me wonder about the business value to a retailer or firm of serving as a drop-off point. Here’s what I came up with: Publicity Walgreens got a little positive publicity from the Ellen DeGeneres Show. You might get something similar in your local market if your local Giving Tree or Sub for Santa effort has media sponsorship. New Sales Walgreens put the ad on the same page as a spread of fairly inexpensive toys, the subconscious message being that if you’re of the mind to do so, you could just buy one or more of these toys and deposit it in the collection barrel. Likewise, if you’re outlet is a grocery store, someone could certainly add a couple extra cans of tuna or chili con carne to their shopping cart and drop them off in the food bank’s bin on your wa...

Faithful Readers: The other day Mrs. Alden Keene asked what the Cause Marketing Blog has done to help the world of nonprofits that have done so much for our world (and my livelihood). I pointed out that the blog is coming up on 600 posts, each indexed with helpful keywords and easily searched. It’s the longest-tenured blog on cause marketing, says author and fellow cause marketing blogger Joe Waters . In almost five years of posting, people from better than 99 percent of the countries in the world have found and read the Cause Marketing Blog. The whole Cause Marketing Blog is a public service, I said. “Yes,” she replied, “and don’t pull any muscles patting yourself on the back. But what have you done for individual nonprofits and sponsors?” I continued to pointlessly make my case before conceding that, of course, she was right. So with Mrs. Alden Keene’s encouragement I have decided that I need offer a direct public service to you, my faithful readers. I am therefore offering a free Q...

Sunday’s newspaper was clogged with flyers from most of the major retailers in my market; Macy’s , Walmart , Target , JC Penney , Sears , Kohl’s and Kmart. The first six listed all devoted at least some space in their sales flyers to their respective cause marketing efforts. Conspicuous by its absence was Kmart. At left is the cause marketing campaign from Sears called Heroes at Home Wish Registry, which offers Sears gift cards to military members and the families registered in the program. Sears is the sponsor and founder of the campaign. (Macy's campaign benefits Make-A-Wish, Target's benefit's St. Jude; JC Penney's benefits the Salvation Army Angel Tree, and Kohl's benefits Kohl's Cares for Kids). I show this page from the Sears flyer because Sears Holdings owns the 1,327 or so Kmarts in operation. Indeed, go to either Sears.com or Kmart.com and you’ll see the overlap of the brands. Sears Holdings is publicly held, but controlled by billionaire-financier Edd...

The Salvation Army USA, in conjunction with the Dallas Cowboys, Fox Sports, and the National Football League, kicked off its annual kettle drive with a performance by country music star Keith Urban during halftime of the Cowboys – New Orleans Saints game held yesterday, Thanksgiving Day 2010. This is the fourteenth year the Salvation Army and the Cowboys have teamed up. Since 1997, the Salvation Army holiday kettle drive has generated $1.3 billion, $139 million last year alone. I couldn’t find any actual footage yet of the performance, so you’re going to have to trust me for now. But the way the Salvation Army was integrated into the performance itself was more stilted than it should have been. The video footage at left is what we used to call a video news release (VNR) meant to promote the kettle drive kickoff. Immediately before the Urban halftime concert we see footage of him leaving his travel bus parked in the bowels of Dallas Cowboys Stadium. As he walks the corridors toward th...

As a holiday, Christmas is surprisingly challenging to cause market around, but a local homebuilder has the bones of a good campaign based on a gingerbread house-building contest that could be duplicated elsewhere. Cause marketing is commonly linked to holidays. I’ve even argued in this space that the pink ribbon campaigns offer retailers, in effect, an extra selling season . But with some notable exceptions, like Christmas benefit albums , the redoubtable Salvation Army bell ringers and a few others , Christmas cause marketing isn’t as common as you might expect. There’s reasons of course. Unlike Valentines, to name another holiday selling season, Christmas in the United States is for many still a holy day, notwithstanding all the commercialization. And it tends to be a very busy time with family and friends. But think of all the potential advantages Christmas holds for cause marketers and fundraisers. Christmas is a time of giving. There’s countless potential ‘hooks;’ Santa and his ...

A recent flyer from a local grocer with about 10 stores in the chain features two cause marketing campaigns and is timed specifically for the holiday season, one for the local food bank and one for the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program. For me this raises a question; regardless of how generous the intent of the grocer, how many cause campaigns can a retailer reasonably sustain at a time? Although these are both full-page images, I didn’t crop them so that you could get a clear sense of the amount of space the grocer, called Macys, devoted to both causes in the same flyer. The food bank effort is in some ways an analog to the Chamber of Commerce paper ico n campaign I profiled on Monday, November 15, although it is not the same effort. And it’s not a paper icon campaign. When you’re in the store, purchase a bag of food and pick your favorite team and the food goes to the associated food bank. The team whose fans donate the most food and money get bragging rights for the year. Of cour...

Breast Cancer Awareness Month ended Oct. 31, and I saw more pink ribbon cause marketing than ever, so you can certainly expect the backlash to begin. Certainly that’s what Cecil Adams , the fine syndicated columnist, is up to in his October, 29, 2010 column called ‘Do pink ribbon campaigns against breast cancer do any good?’ Adams issues three basic laments: 1). Unlike in Canada the Pink Ribbon isn’t owned by anyone in the United States, opening up the campaign to possible corporate mischief. 2). Everyone would be better off if you just sent $12 in rather than go through all the who-ha of collecting and mailing Yoplait lids. 3). While death rates to breast cancer have fallen since 1990, breast cancer incidence rates are actually 25 percent higher than in 1980. I can’t speak knowledgeably to the science or the physiology of breast cancer, so I’ll just address Adams’ two central problems with cause marketing. That the ribbon isn’t owned by one entity in the United States certain DOES ope...

Five or six years ago the term 'co-branding' was one of those hot marketing buzzwords. Nowadays co-branding is so commonplace as to be mundane. The point of co-branding is for brands to combine such that they create notable synergy. There are several kinds of co-branding, including cause marketing itself. This article, from Tiger Woods' previous sponsor , Accenture, names six : Promotional/Sponsorship. This is the category cause marketing falls under. Also Motorola's sponsorship of the National Football League. Ingredient. Betty Crocker brownie mix made with Hershey chocolate, or any of the Jack Daniels' dishes at TGI Fridays . Innovation Based. The Apple-Nike tie-up. Value-Chain , which is meant to bring new experiences to the consumer, not just another flavor. There are three varieties of value-chain co-branding: Product Service. Sea World and Southwest Airlines . Supplier-Retailer. Starbucks wifi service from AT&T. Alliance. Think FTD , or those all...

Everybody has their wish list for President Barack Obama. This has been true of U.S. presidents since at least the time of President Andrew Jackson 180 years ago when people would walk up to the ‘People’s House’ as Jackson called it knock on the door and petition the great populist directly. Speaking as a cause marketer, here’s my wish list for President Obama, expressed in an open letter.   Dear President Obama: You have much to do in the opening days of your administration. But I hope you’ll carve out a little bit of your prodigious energy to think for a moment about a cause marketing, which I define as: “a relationship that bridges cause and commerce in ways that benefit both parties.” Like many others, I have wishes and hopes for your administration. As a cause marketer, three stand out. 1). Please make cause marketing donations tax deductible. Doing so would almost certainly boost consumer spending. This has been proposed by Professors Anup Malani and M. Todd Hende...

In a sales circular that landed in my mailbox on Monday, Dec. 8, Wal-Mart gave three-quarters of a page to the venerable Salvation Army. Too bad it couldn’t have been much less useful. In 45 swift words the page mentions that need will be great this year, that the Salvation Army will again provide a backstop for the nation’s neediest and that Wal-Mart encourages support of this worthy cause this season, all in a much too-short, unhelpful ad. MIA is any call to action, like ‘support the bell-ringers with your donations.’ Or, go online to make a donation to the Sally Ann’s virtual red kettle . In this ad, the Salvation Army comes off like a Christmastime charity, as though it was just Toys for Tots for adults or families. Where’s mention of the Salvation Army’s 100-year history (in the States) of extraordinary work on behalf of the poor, the destitute, and the dispossessed? Wal-Mart and the Salvation Army have been together for more than two decades, where’s a real sense of partnership i...

Right now the monster RED campaign is drawing all kinds of fire for spending dollars to make pennies. The rhetoric is flowing hot and fast in the new media and the old. A reporter for Newsweek even approached me for my opinion. I hope she quotes me. In the event she doesn't, I’ll post half her questions and my responses today and the remainder on Thursday. On 3/9/07, Bennett, Jessica 1234@newsweek.com > wrote: hi paul, ok, feel free to pick and choose from these and contribute your own thoughts if you think there's anything i've overlooked. also let me know if you've got any suggestions of background info or studies i should look into. 1. what's the premise behind cause marketing, why does it work, and how pervasive is it today? A lot of things are called cause marketing that are probably mislabeled. As I think of it cause marketing is generally a promotional tactic meant draw on the appeal of a cause to help sell a product for a company. Like most promotions, th...