Cause Marketing

In the lead-up to World Environment Day , Sunday, May 5, 2011 Budweiser is asking men to save water by forgoing shaving. Called 'Grow One. Save a Million' (GOSAM), the promotion has been going on in a low-profile way since 2010. Budweiser is also donating $150,000 to the River Network , a watershed conservation charity. But the campaign has since gone Hollywood with the inclusion of Nick Offerman , the butch star of the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation . GOSAM is premised on the fact that American men use an average five gallons of water per shave. Saving a million gallons of water should be pretty easy therefore, since 1,000,000 divided by 5 gallons is 200,000. Divide that by 20, the number of days a man might shave in a month, and the result is 10,000. So if 10,000 dudes quit shaving for a month in America, we’re there. Since beer starts with water, water conservation is a natural fit for Budweiser. But Budweiser is relying on GOSAM to save water by being fun. In one release,...

You ever go to a fancy gala and read the program with all the awkward sponsor announcements in the back? You know: “The Investment Counselors at Second Fidelity and Trust Congratulate Sumner Redstone as the First Children’s 2010 Father of the Year and Wish Him Every Success!” That’s kind of what’s at work in this ad from the inflight magazine called Delta Sky . The magazine had a special feature on Pittsburgh and in that feature was this ad from Bayer , which has its North American headquarters there. On June 5, Pittsburgh hosted the United Nation’s event World Environment Day , and Bayer and its foundation, along with other Pittsburgh corporate mainstays like Alcoa and Heinz , were among the sponsors. But look at the visual. There’s a shirtless boy gratefully drinking clean water straight from the spigot, a spigot which has that fat, ragged-looking weld that suggests ‘developing world.’ It’s a really splendid picture. When I saw it, that visual told me that Bayer was doing some kind ...