Cause Marketing

In every bad cause marketing campaigns, ads and research I’ve autopsied this year I’ve tried to find something to praise. This is in stark contrast to the postmortems they do on all those CSI-style dramas that air on TV nearly nonstop in the States these days. You’d never hear this dialogue on any of those shows: “How did he die, doc?” “Well, he ate a high fiber diet that kept his blood cholesterol in a very healthy range. And it looks like he had the resting heart rate of Tour de France champion. But I’d say it was the bullet to his heart that killed him.” But in the interest of fairness, I tried to do just that in 2008. Right now, though, in the interest of brevity, I'm just going to be snarky. I couldn’t believe the little ad I saw in Cookie magazine for a fundraiser for startup charity called  Cookies for Kids Cancer . The headline read: “But a Cookie, Save a Life.” As I wrote then, “my reaction was, ‘Oh no they just didn’t!’ The ad was one of seven on a single page; the ...

I’ve taken nonprofits to task for being too subtle in their recognition of sponsors. Now with this ad from York Peppermint Patty, the shoe’s on the other foot. The ad appeared in the June-July 2008 issue of Elle magazine. And down there at the very bottom of the ad is a pink ribbon and words that read in mice-type: “York is a proud supporter of the Young Survivor Coalition .” York Peppermint Patties, a unit of The Hershey Company , is packaged both as individual units and in bags of multiple units, but the per piece price is generally less than $0.50. It’s cheap candy, in other words. Do you need to advertise even cheap candy? Of course. Stop doing it for while and watch your sales drop. Does York Peppermint Patties need to advertise in Elle, a fashion magazine for young women? It’s not a choice I’d have made, especially with this creative. The headline… ‘70% Less Fat’… is certainly targeted to the audience. But the subhead… “(And they say there isn’t any good news anymore.)”… seems ...