Cause Marketing

U2 gets my vote as the best cause marketers in rock and roll based on their efforts on behalf of [RED] and Bono’s own cause-marketed clothing line called ‘Edun.’ But which country act earns honors as the best country music cause marketers? If you twisted my arm today I’d say the Zac Brown Band . Marketing bands and their music these days is a whole lot different than it was when the labels did all the promotions (and took the lion's share of the revenue). File sharing changed all that. When anyone can find your music for free on the file sharing websites, you can't rely on download sales alone for all your revenue. The resulting lower profit margins for the labels demands that bands assume greater responsibility for their own promotion. For the very smartest bands these new revenue models can actually be more lucrative. The Zac Brown Band, a country music act, uses cause marketing as a part of its promotional mix. Regular readers will remember that back in Jul...

In the Great Recession some companies are turning to sponsorship, including cause marketing, instead of carpet bombing us with more ads. Sponsorship is potentially cheaper than just buying ads, probably more targeted, more easily attuned to social media, and ‘stickier.’ Pepsi famously is spending a goodly chunk of its enormous ad budget on its Refresh Project , wherein the company is giving away millions to individuals, small groups, businesses, and organizations who are trying… broadly speaking… to better the world. The giving is determined by popular vote, thus ensuring that funding candidates get the word out. Pepsi has recently... and smartly… added a subset called Refresh the Gulf . Less well known, perhaps, and less grandiose is Dodge Ram Trucks campaign called Letters for Lyrics. Write a letter to a soldier, take it to your local Dodge Ram dealer and you get the CD 'Breaking Southern Ground.' The campaign’s stated goal is to give away 1 million CDs. A download from the ...