Cause Marketing

Oakley is a really cool brand of sunglasses worn by very cool people. Oakley’s celebrity endorsers include Olympians Oscar Pistorius, Lindsay Vonn and Shaun White. Oakley’s headquarters in Foothill Ranch, California is cool in a Blade Runner kinda way. After he sold the company to Italy’s Luxottica Group, Oakley’s founder, Jim Jannard, went on to start RED Digital Camera, which makes really cool digital cameras used by cool movie-makers . Cool comes off Oakley like snow comes off Shaun White’s snowboard at the top of the halfpipe. So when Oakley decided to do a pair of pink sunglasses, what pink ribbon charity did they choose to partner with? Oakley chose the Young Survival Coalition, whose tagline is, “young women facing breast cancer together.” As I’ve mentioned in this space before, the bell curve of breast cancer diagnoses hovers over women in their fifties and sixties. But, of course, many younger women get their breast cancer diagnosis in their twenties and thirties, in...

Research and experience show that the match between the cause and the sponsor is an important determining factor in the success of the cause marketing campaign. There’s a few notable exceptions…namely when the cause and the sponsor are very well known. But, in general, the less time you have to spend explaining the relationship the better. For instance, this campaign from Lula Lu and Save the Ta-Tas. When you buy one of Lula Lu’s Kallie Bras, the company will donate 10 percent of the sale to Save the Ta-Tas. Lula Lu sells lingerie for petite women. Save the Ta-Tas is a two-part brand. A for-profit entity sells merchandise with its name and logo. Five percent of each purchase and 10 percent of everything they license goes to the Save the Ta-Tas Foundation. The Foundation funnels the money to breast cancer research as advised and matched by the Concern Foundation. Before ‘Eff’ Cancer came along, Save the Ta-Tas was the most irreverent brand in anti-cancer. Now, Lula Lu isn’t breaking n...

I’ve been getting pushback from my Oct. 4 post titled, ‘Transactional Cause Marketing is Not the Boogeyman.” In it I dismissed people who get heartburn from the practice of transactional cause marketing, that is, when a purchase triggers the donation. Fear not friends, there is a middle ground as evidenced by Hope tennis balls from Wilson that you see on the left. But first, the pushback. Here’s what I wrote then : “Transactional cause marketing is a promotion. So are coupons, sales flyers, sampling, among many others. But let’s just drill down on sampling. It’s very clear that when stores sample a product you’re more likely to buy it because it generates a powerful sense of reciprocity. Cause marketing pulls many of the same psychological strings. So why does the addition of a cause make transactional cause marketing somehow more underhanded than sampling? For that matter, it seems that lump-sum donations are just as likely to get you to buy something as transactional cause mark...

Not every cause marketing campaign features the likes of the YMCA and Coke*. Sometimes it takes place between a charity which is very well known and a sponsor that isn’t. Or, vice versa. (*Interbrand ranks Coke as the top for-profit brand for 2012 . Cone ranked YMCA as the top nonprofit brand .) I call that dynamic ‘asymmetrical cause marketing.’ For instance, Shiseido, certainly Asia’s oldest and best-known cosmetic brand and the cause called Cancer and Careers, which I had to look up. The offer here is a straightforward transactional cause marketing effort. Buy a tube of Shiseido Lacquer Rouge lipstick in the color called ‘Disco’ for $25 and Shiseido will donate $5 to Cancer and Careers. Research and experience shows that the most reliable results comes when the sponsor’s brand and the cause’s brand are basically equally well-known. The other two possible dynamics… the cause is better known than the sponsor or the sponsor is better known than the cause… tend to produce results whe...

When you buy a bottle of Avon’s Pink Power Pro Nail Enamel, 100% of the profits go to Avon Breast Cancer Crusade. Avon sells the product for $3 a bottle. Since 1992, the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade under the aegis of the Avon Foundation has generated more than $740 million, an astonishing number by any measure. Given Avon’s bona fides, I wonder why it bothers with the 100% of profits model for this product? Why not just follow MAC Viva Glam lipsticks and glosses lead and give 100% of sales of this product to Avon Breast Cancer Crusade? Why would they want to? After all, such efforts include not only the cost of the donation, but the cost of the product along with the cost of distribution, which in Avon’s case would certainly include commissions to the Avon ladies. A $3 donation would probably cost Avon something north of $4 per bottle. The short answer is those Avon ladies need all the sales arrows in their quiver that they can get. They need a low-threat way to talk about Avon produc...

U.S. Census figures put ecommerce at 5.1 percent of total retail sales in the second quarter of 2012, up from 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Almost everyone see etail’s percentage of total retail sales doubling and even trebling in the next three to five years. Naturally a lot of cause marketing has migrated to etail as well. However, rare is the etail cause marketing promotion that really makes good use of the Internet’s many powers. It’s like running a TV commercial, but without using any sound. Or, showing a blockbuster on 25 percent of the movie screen. This campaign by Chicbuds.com, which sells earbuds and this cute little powered speaker for your mobile device for $40 called a fauvette. During October, 2012, 20 percent of the sale of each bedazzled fauvette… or $8… goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Fauvette, in French, means a small singing bird, like a nightingale or a warbler. These fauvettes come bedazzled with crystals in pink, black and gold, ...

For a short while signs have appeared that seem to suggest that a company’s halo shines just as brightly whether they sponsor a transactional cause marketing effort as when they just make a lump sum pre-donation and promote it. Cone’s most recent Cause Evolution study found that people are only slightly more favorably inclined towards companies employing transactional cause marketing (53%) than to lump sum charitable donations (47%). Transactional cause marketing is when the sponsor ties its donation directly to a purchase. Cone’s survey amplifies a small experiment highlighted in the book, “Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive,” by Goldstein, Martin, Cialdini, which had a similar finding. But these studies make me itchy and uncomfortable, like a wool sweater in Indian Summer. It could be self-interest that gives me the itch. I make my living helping causes and companies put together effective cause marketing campaigns, after all, not showing people how to wri...

Been thinking a lot about the topic of transactional cause marketing versus publicized corporate charitable donations. Cone’s most recent Cause Evolution study found that people are only slightly more favorably inclined towards companies employing transactional cause marketing (53%) than to lump sum charitable donations (47%). Transactional cause marketing is when the sponsor ties its donation to a purchase. Cone’s survey comes on the heals of a small study highlighted in the 2008 book, “Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive,” by Goldstein, Martin, Cialdini. In this instance, the authors test what amounts to a cause marketing approach to persuade guests in a hotel to reuse the towels in their room. They test a transactional cause marketing approach: “reuse their towels and the hotel will make a donation to an environmental cause.” But they found it no more effective than the card left in the room simply asking people to reuse their towels for the sake of the environment. ...

I’m delighted to offer a guest post today by my friend and cause marketing colleague David Hessekiel, the founder and president of the Cause Marketing Forum and the co-author of the new book on cause marketing called Good Works , out as June 5, 2012. David co-wrote Good Works with marketing legend Phillip Kotler and Nancy Lee. Today David tackles the issue of just how big cause marketing is and how we can get to a more meaningful measure of its size and dimensions. For years the only calculation we’ve had is IEG’s annual projection of how much companies plan on spending on cause marketing in the year to comes. As a gauge of cause marketing it’s a little determining the health of your car by measuring how much air pressure is in the back right tire. It’s inadequate and not very telling.  One of the fabulous yet sometimes frustrating aspects of cause marketing is its diversity.   Some campaigns focus on raising funds (buy this and we’ll give a dime), others concentrate...

One of my ongoing complaints with a lot of cause marketing activation is the degree to which sponsors seem to want to keep their distance from their partner cause (or visa versa). There’s none of that in this ad for Pur, which really 'owns' its longstanding commitment to clean water in Africa. Pur, which is a water purifier brand from Procter & Gamble, offers a straightforward transactional cause marketing effort. Buy various Pur products online and the company will send water purification packets to needy African countries. Since 2008, Pur packets have treated more than 1.6 billion liters of water. P&G developed the packets itself, which contain a powder that purifies and disinfects a liter of bad water. What I like about this ad that I found in the Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database is the degree to which Pur really entwines its brand with the cause. While the main art is about the family benefits of Pur’s in-home water filtration offerings, half the body copy is...

A recent trip to the grocery store turned into an opportunity to scope out some packaged goods cause marketing. I started near the bakery side of the store and then made my way to drinks aisle, looking for cause marketing wherever I could find it. Here are 14 that caught my eye.  505 Southwestern This is a simple transactional cause marketing effort that runs year-round. By transactional cause marketing I mean that when you buy the jar, it triggers a donation to an unnamed breast cancer cause (or causes). Normally, this would require the consent of the cause. But since 505 uses only the pink ribbon, which is not trademarked/copyrighted, no permission is required. Although 505 would be prudent to report on its website the amounts donated to which causes. Kitchen Basics Beef Stock This product carries a seal of approval from the American Heart Association. The most famous such seals are the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval and the America...

If you’re a restaurant, even in a quick-service category, it’s hard to imagine a transactional cause marketing campaign you could launch more easily or quickly than a dessert promotion. When a customer buys a slice of cake, pie, a dish of ice cream, or some other dessert you make a donation to your cause partner. In most cases you wouldn’t want to promote a salad or a main course. At a sit-down restaurant most customers come into your establishment to order an entrée and in many cases you probably give them a salad with the meal. So you don’t need to promote entrees. But with an appetizer, drink or dessert promotion you could quite possibly raise the average ticket price by several dollars. Drinks have very high margins, of course, and consequently they have often been featured in cause marketing promotions. But most of the cause marketing around mixed drinks that I’ve seen involve a custom flavor that somehow befits the cause. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. It just requir...

In the December 1991 issue of Life magazine insurer Fireman’s Fund ran the image ad at the left that describes the insurer’s role in the restoration of Ellis Island. Read the body copy and conspicuous by its absence is any mention of Fireman’s Fund actually supporting the restoration financially. That was 20 years ago… just eight years after American Express’s seminal cause marketing effort on behalf of the restoration of the neighboring Statue of Liberty… and a lot has changed. Life magazine still ran ads for cigarettes, for instance. Moreover, I submit to you that if Ellis Island were being restored in 2011 Fireman’s Fund would almost certainly make a financial donation to the effort that would be mentioned in the ad. Joe Waters and Joanna MacDonald both started their careers in cause marketing in the early 1990s, (as did I). And in the process they and other pioneers of cause marketing have changed the way companies think about and communicate the ways that they benefit societ...

On monday, May 23, 2011 the post was about the current American zeitgeist for supporting the troops . The post on Thursday May 19, 2011 was about how cause marketing is a form of co-branding . Too bad I didn’t wait until today to post on those separate subjects because I could have killed two birds with one post. Yesterday I got the Lowe’s circular at left that features co-branded cause marketing with PepsiCo benefiting the troops. Called Summer Salute Program, here’s how it works: PepsiCo and Lowe’s will donate $1 million to unnamed charity or charities that support the troops and their families. Part of Pepsi’s piece of this includes their NASCAR drivers Jimmie Johnson (Gatorade), Jeff Gordon (Pepsi Max) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (AMP Energy/Mountain Dew), all of whom will run their cars with Summer Salute paint schemes. All are affiliated with the famed Hendrick Motorsports team. Johnson, of course, drives the Lowe’s car. To give the campaign a little more emotional depth, Lowe’s and P...

Cause marketing is pretty easy to understand. Until it isn’t. From Alden Keene’s voluminous cause marketing database are two breast cancer campaigns that cut against the grain of expectations. The campaigns in question are both transactional cause marketing, but they aren’t for jewelry or makeup or kitchen goods or clothing , or even pink buckets of KFC chicken , although that one was out there, too. Instead they’re for shooting gear and a non-kitchen knife. From the November 2009 issue of Shooting Times is this short editorial piece on an offering from Champion, which makes eye and ear protection for shooters. In 2009 when you bought special pink ammo pouches, shooting glasses or electronic earmuffs Champion donated a portion of the proceeds to Breast Cancer Network of Strength. Perhaps 20 million women own firearms in the United States. That’s a substantial market, so it’s not surprising that the pink ribbon can be found there. What is surprising to me is that they found a willi...

Must…control…the…urge…to…be…sarcastic. In its recently-released Cause Evolution Study , (registration required) Cone, Inc. found that people are only slightly more favorably inclined towards companies employing transactional cause marketing (53%) than to lump sum charitable donations (47%). Transactional cause marketing is when the donation is tied to a purchase. I’m still processing that part of Cone’s findings and I’m not sure if I believe or not. Maybe I just don't see how that finding really benefits sponsors. Assuming it's accurate, we can probably expect more efforts like the FSI (Free Standing Insert) above. In late September, in time for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Purina dropped this FSI supporting Susan G. Komen for the Cure . Purina , which started making animal feed in 1894, will write a check for $300,000 to Komen in support of its mission to cure breast cancer… in humans. Back in May 2010, Purina ran a themed FSI for National Pet Month, in which during...

One question I am frequently asked is: "just what is the best amount to set the donation at in transactional cause marketing?" What percentage should the donation be in cause marketing? As a rule of thumb, academic studies have found that more is more when it comes to setting the amount. That is, the greater the donation the better the sales boost. But that’s not terribly helpful in this age when every Baby Boomer knows the exact number of his good and bad cholesterol.readings. People want a tidy little percentage. But that’s fraught with problems for some sponsors. If you set the number very high, doesn’t that suggest that your prices are too lofty? For LavishGiving.com , an online gift store, that number is 10 percent. When you make purchases totaling $100 or more, after 7 days LavishGiving.com will send 10 percent of the total to you as a gift card from Networkforgood.org , which you can then donate to the your charity of choice. The time lag is to allow for returns. Lavis...

Following General Mills’ lead , Campbell’s Labels for Education is rebranding so as to be more appealing to would-be partners. “The logo was very heavily Campbell-branded,” Mike Salzberg, president, Campbell Sales, told Brandweek. “We’ve never gone outside as far as sharing it or getting partners. But now we believe there is an opportunity for partnerships, starting with the one we formed with the Grammy Foundation.” (The logo on the left is the old one. When I get the new one I'll share it). With this new ‘open source cause marketing’ approach Campbell is doubling down in the bad economy. “In a troubled economy, being able to collect and win any free stuff in places where they’re taking things away [works],” says Salzberg. Now in its 36th year, Labels for Education has generated more than $110 million in goods and supplies for the nation’s schools. About 75 percent of the nation’s schools participate in Labels for Education. Campbell’s renewed effort underscores something I’ve wri...

In the declining economy, people in the UK , the US and elsewhere are buying more ‘house brands.’ Of course they are, you say. What could make more sense than to get the same-quality or nearly the same quality for a meaningful savings? I don’t have a handy chart to demonstrate, but this is what always happens in bad economic times. When the economy dips, sales of cheaper house brands and generics take off. And when the economy recovers consumers go back to the major brands. For the foreseeable future, price is going to be major driver for the consumer. Imagine this scenario: a shopper faces two cans of cream of mushroom soup, the store brand and the dominant brand in the US, Campbell's. The store brand has respectable quality and is 26 percent cheaper per ounce. In a face off like that, Campbell’s market share would erode very seriously sans their incredible market shelf space and decades-old Labels for Education program, in my view. Now if the store brand started a well thought-...