Cause Marketing

'Top Eight' 'Bottom Nine' What Do I Have Against the Number 10? I was contemptuous of a pretty good number of cause-related marketing campaigns and cause marketing ads in 2007. Nine of them make my list for the worst campaigns of 2007. [Read my list of the best eight cause-related marketing campaigns here .] But only one gave me a visceral reaction. That was an ad in BabyTalk Magazine by American Greetings and featuring the Sesame Street character Elmo. The ad had the look and feel of a cause-related marketing campaign meant to benefit kids in Third World countries “Instead… as you read the fine print… you learn that Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit which produces Sesame Street and other children’s shows, applies the money it earns from its licensees to underwrite the production of versions of Sesame Street in other countries. Sure, and when I fill up on gas at CITGO stations kids in Venezuela are able to go to college.” The only reason this ad didn’t lead the list is be...

Elmo’s World of Slick Cause-Related Marketing I confess I don’t have the experience abroad to judge if it’s a good idea to take Sesame Street … the 38-year-old American children’s TV show… to places like Egypt, Bangladesh, and South Africa. And I’m not sure to what degree the shows “work” in those countries. (In fact, neither are Sesame Street ’s producers. Here’s what their president and CEO Gary E. Knell wrote in their 2005 annual report : “As we’ve said before, we don’t pretend that media can, by itself, solve the many problems of the world, but we do believe­­­—and research confirms—that they can contribute to the solutions.”) I do, however, have a background in cause-related marketing and this 2-part ad, which appeared in BabyTalk Magazine in May 2006, leaves me cold. As we’ll see, even though it has the veneer of cause-related marketing, it’s actually just an advertisement for one of Sesame Street ’s licensees. American Greetings … the greeting card giant… was a Sesam...