Cause Marketing

Can money buy happiness? As a matter of fact, it can. But not in the way you might think. Professor Michael Norton at the Harvard Business School did a series of fun experiments that found that if you spend money right, it can indeed lead to happiness. To come right to the point to be happy spending money, you can’t spend it on yourself . But let’s back up and explain how Norton and his colleagues Elizabeth Dunn and Lara Atkin at the University of British Columbia figured this out. They asked students at the University of British Columbia if they wanted to be in a study. If they said yes they tested their baseline happiness and gave them an envelope with cash in it. Some were instructed to spend the money on themselves by 5pm that day. Others got instructions to spend it on others by 5pm that day. Some got $5, some got $20. They called the students that night and found that they had spent the money the way they were asked. They also asked what the students had spent the money on and...

April 25. 2012 is End Malaria Day and to help purchase insecticide-treated nets more than 60 (mainly) A-list business and personal development writers are publishing a book by the same name, ‘End Malaria Day.’ Buy it on Kindle for $20 and all $20 goes to purchase anti-malarial nets that will drape over someone’s bed, probably in Africa where malaria is endemic. The paperback version is $25 and in that case net profits go to buy nets like the one at the left. It’s a terrific cause and a cool roster of business thinkers. I hope you’ll join me in buying the book/download. But as I was mousing around the EndMalariaDay.com site I came across a comment from “Tkharris” who asks, “Can we just contribute without buying the book?” I don’t know whether or not the site allows direct donations, but it certainly ought to. But TK’s comment set me to thinking. What he or she seems to be doing is repudiating one of the small handful of a cause marketing campaigns I’ve even seen wherein every single pen...

In the immediate aftermath of Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s silly public missteps with Planned Parenthood (and KFC before that), a lot of pundits read the tea leaves and foresaw corporate defections from Komen’s sponsor list and public excoriation. So much for all that. On April 5, 2012 Komen and Caribou Coffee announced a deal whereby Komen would be the beneficiary of Amy’s Blend , a coffee blend names for former Caribou roastmaster Amy Erickson, who succumbed to breast cancer after a lengthy battle. Komen is also the partner in Amy’s Gardens, three gardens that celebrate Erickson’s valiant fight. With 450 stores, Caribou is the second-largest coffee house chain in the United States, after the much, much larger Starbucks. Caribou inked the deal despite the fact that there are anti-Komen websites, scholars whose careers hinge on being anti-Komen, an anti-Komen documentary movie, and a half-dozen of so direct competitors. Komen absorbs the blows from all these brickbats and more and ke...

In a post about Starbuck CEO Howard Schultz at theatlantic.com , ‘Jack Flack’ (aka Paul Pendergrass) takes a swipe about the effectiveness of cause marketing that isn’t supported by the facts. Flack’s post is about the fact that Schultz is at the top of the ‘spin’-cycle right now. The stock is at an all-time high, in Dec 2011 Schultz was named Fortune magazine’s Business Leader of the Year and the CEO has launched some audacious initiatives that aren’t directly about selling coffee. In September 2011 Schultz pledged that he would stop making donations to incumbent politicians until they demonstrated a credible plan to address the Federal budget deficit. More than 100 other CEOs also pledged to withhold political donations from incumbents. Later in the year Starbucks unveiled its ‘Indivisible’ wristband effort, which generates loanable funds to small businesses nationwide. I’ve covered both issues here and here . Schultz, says Flack, is a flavor of the month. I don’t disagree. Unless S...

Some things go better together in threes; a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke, for instance. Or, Crosby, Stills and Nash. Or, Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Or, Groucho, Chico and Harpo. Or, Newton’s Laws of Motion. Or, faith, hope and charity. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that companies which face the consumer better do three things well: practice corporate social responsibility; have a strong green tint; and, engage in cause marketing. Time was when companies could pick one of the three and be fine. But the corporate environment has changed. Now companies like Starbucks have altered consumer expectations and demands of what corporate social responsibility means. Starbucks pays its employees fairly and offers benefits. It sells fair-trade coffee to benefit its farmer-suppliers. It works to lower its environmental footprint. And it does smart cause marketing. Like no other large company, Starbucks practices the Holy Trinity of corporate social responsibility. Starbucks, along with C...

Since November 1, 2011 Starbucks has been doing its best to help boost the economy via a cause marketing standard; the wristband. 'Indivisible' wristbands are $5 at 6,800 company-operated stores in the United States. All the money goes to the Opportunity Finance Network, an umbrella group of 180 Community Development Financial Institutions, which specialize in making loans to small businesses. Starbucks seeded the effort with a $5 million donation . Studies suggest that new businesses in particular are the ones most likely to generate jobs. (Parenthetically, another company that started small and grew big, the Boston Beer Company, which makes Samuel Adams beer, has offered a small business mentorship and financing effort called Brewing the American Dream since June 2008). Since all this has been well-covered elsewhere in great depth, I want to describe the exemplary way the transaction took place when I bought mine late 2011 at a nearby Starbucks. The wristbands at my Starbu...

Long-time readers know I’m a sap when it comes to integrated cause marketing campaigns that are activated across multiple media because I believe they’re more effective and because… having done of few of these campaigns myself… I know how much hard work they are. Here’s how this one works: When you buy a package of Starbucks branded Morning Joe coffee, “Starbucks with MSNBC will donate to the DonorsChoose.org project of your choice.” You redeem it online at DonorsChoose.org using the code from the package of Morning Joe coffee. The ‘with MSNBC’ line, I suspect, means that MSNBC is donating airtime to the promotion rather than cash. Morning Joe is the name of the MSNBC morning talk show hosted by former member of (U.S) Congress from Florida, Joe Scarborough, along ‘with’ Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist. Starbucks has been a sponsor... of one flavor or another… of Morning Joe since June 2009, drawing scrutiny and criticism from media watchdogs and others. The Starbucks logo is embedded...

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...