Cause Marketing

There’s a lot of fundraising going on at retail these days, oftentimes the easy to execute paper icon campaigns. But what’s an e-tailer do that’s painless for them to put together and quickly understand and appreciated by the customer? A lot is at stake for cause marketers. E-tail in the United States alone amounts to $327 billion, according to Forrester , with the rest of the world coming in at more than twice that. Worldwide e-tail represents no less than a $770 billion business. Newton Running , a Boulder, Colorado company that sells its own make of high-end running shoes in electric colors to marathoners and Ironman racers, takes a straightforward approach to its cause marketing. As you check out, Newton asks you to add $1 to one or more of three causes; Athletes for a Cure, a prostate cancer charity, Trickle Up, a microenterprise charity, and One World Running, which provides shoes to the needy in Africa. See at left. Between the three causes, Newton spends a grand total of 37...