Cause Marketing

One of the first business categories to really adopt cause marketing was consumer packaged goods. Those early CPG promotions frequently went something like this: The sponsor would run an ad in a free-standing insert or FSI, which are those booklets of coupons that drop in local newspapers once a week or so. The donation was based on the number of coupons consumers redeemed. So the pitch was, 'get cents off your purchase while some more cents go to a cause.' Naturally, the FSIs served as the principal form of activation for the promotion Now Naked Juice, a consumer packaged goods company with a long history of cause marketing, is activating their current effort via social media. At left is their Twitter page. About every fifth tweet is one that features the #gooddeeds hashtag. They switch up the wording, but all the tweets with the #gooddeeds hashtag mention that you can get a coupon at nakedjuice.com/gooddeeds. Point your browser there and up pops a $1-off printable coupon....

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...