Cause Marketing

Until I saw the free standing insert (FSI) on the left from Marcal Manufacturing on Sunday, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen a CEO featured in a cause marketing type ad. Heck, I could count it on one finger. That CEO was the wonderfully avuncular Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s as well as its long-time pitchman. Thomas died in 2002 at the age 69. Thomas was famously adopted as a child. As an adult he started the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption , which Wendy's sponsored. Wendy’s continues to support the foundation … along with other charities… with cause marketing initiatives and corporate giving. Now Marcal is using its CEO in a cause marketing type appeal. Since 1950 Marcal has made paper products from recycled paper. It goes without saying that Marcal was decades ahead of its time. Marcal was purchased in 2008 by a private equity outfit and Tim Spring , the man in the ad, was installed as CEO. Spring has extensive experience in consumer package good...

One of the complaints greens have about cause marketing is that it typically incentivizes and rewards the purchase of more stuff. Stuff that might be useful for a while but eventually ends up in a landfill somewhere. Into this conundrum came Sprint , the mobile service provider, and Samsung , the handset maker. Together they came up with a cause marketing campaign that mitigates some of those usual concerns. From August to Dec 2009, Sprint gave $2 to the Nature Conservancy for the sale of each Samsung Reclaim phone and messaging device. There was a guaranteed minimum donation of $250,000. A press release tells me that the maximum donation was $500,000, which the program achieved. The Reclaim phone currently sells for $49.99, with a Sprint plan. The Nature Conservancy is using the donation for its ‘ Adopt an Acre ’ program. To mitigate green concerns, the phone was made from 80 percent recyclable materials and its packaging was fully recyclable. It was the first phone sold in the U.S. w...

Sprint and Motorola Campaign for Red Many cause-related marketing campaigns require consumers to buy something. Maybe it’s a rubber bracelet. Or a plush toy. Maybe it’s a dessert special or music CD, or some kind of service. While some people will just buy the cause-related marketing product or service without being prompted, usually they won’t. Like life insurance, and a tie that goes with the suit, sometimes cause-related marketing isn’t bought, it’s sold. (Packaged goods being a notable exception.) I was reminded of this the other day when I was in my local Sprint store. Sprint Nextel is third-largest wireless telecommunications provider in the States, with 52 million subscribers. Along with Motorola, they are among the sponsors of the Red campaign. When you sign up for service and purchase a themed MotoRazr or Motoslvr phone, Motorola and Sprint jointly donate $17 to Red’s efforts to eradicate AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in Africa. I know this because they had a dandy little...