Cause Marketing

Cause-related marketing is about motivating people to change their behavior. Frequently the motivating carrot involves money going to a cause. But not always. For instance, in the campaign on the left from T-Mobile , the American mobile phone company and a division of the European Union’s largest telecommunication company, Deutsch Telekom AG. This is from the newsletter called ‘scoop’ that came with T-Mobile’s March 2008 billing statement. When you switch to paperless billing, T-Mobile, in conjunction with the Arbor Day Foundation , will plant a tree in your name in a blighted area of the United States. The Arbor Day Foundation, a tree-planting charity headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, calls it the Restoration Project. The tree planting is concentrated in the region around New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and areas of Southern California which were denuded of trees by the fires of 2007. The creative, from the March 2008 statement is clean and bright, if a little vi...

List-Schmist? Sandra Sims had a comment on the recent post about the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s “e-Shamrock” campaign . Her points were so interesting that rather than respond to her via Blogspot's clumsy comments system, I thought I'd post directly to the blog. Sandra's comments are here in italics, followed by my response. “This is an interesting update to the paper icon campaigns. When Chili's did their campaign for St. Judes at their restaurants last year they had an online site where you could create a pepper and print it out, though they didn't charge for it. So that ability, with a donation, would be another good suggestion. MDA could have also added to Honor/Memory of component by sending an email to the person it was made in Honor/Memory of. I think your points about it going viral and the fact that MDA builds a list are two of the campaign's strongest points. Though the question is how strong is that list? If the people are donating low amounts ...

CLOSE ON GUS -- He holds the envelope in his hand, trying not to show his excitement. But you can practically hear his heart pounding. Now, almost afraid to look, he slowly edges the check out of its envelope. He closes both eyes. Now he opens one eye and peeks. INSERT -- On the "Expenses" check emerging from the envelope. First we SEE the name: AUGUST GORMAN. And then...the amount: $85,789.80! GUS (o.s.) (quietly) Pennies from heaven. Round-Up Some Change Imagine if, like Richard Pryor’s character Gus Gorman in Superman III, that the charity you work with or for could get just a few pennies from each retail transaction. It wouldn’t necessarily mean an $85 million payday, but a bunch of pennies really adds up. (The excerpt is from scifiscripts.com . Superman III was written by David Newman and Leslie Newman). If the charity you work for or with generates a lot of affinity and has a particularly strong relationship with a retailer or a banking institution, you may be a likel...

Linda P. in London asks how to sign up for the Cause-Related Marketing GoogleGroup. It's simple, just send an email to me, Paul Jones, with your name, email address, city, state (if applicable) and country. I don't sell your email address to anyone. And I ask for your name and location only because it helps me know who my audience is. So to subscribe, send an email to: aldenkeeneatgmail.com. And of course you'll need to replace the 'at' with the @ symbol. I spell it out that way to keep the spam at a minimum.

We turn again to the icon campaign only this time an all-electronic version. It’s the season of St. Patrick’s Day in the United States and the Muscular Dystrophy Association is selling their paper Shamrocks in stores and other retail locations. I saw them advertised as a top banner ad on the website of my local newspaper. I clicked on the ad and it took me to a secure page on the MDA website . It took forever to download, but in time a video appeared featuring a short performance from by singer Ace Young from their telethon. Young, a former American Idol finalist, then made a call to action to support the MDA by buying an electronic version of their Shamrock in $5 or $10 amounts, or more. Some of the traffic comes from Young’s Myspace page and he addresses those fans directly in the script. MDA also has a Myspace page and counts Young as a friend. Like all icon campaigns this is “ fortune at the bottom of the pyramid ” type fundraising, but for MDA an 'e-Shamrock' is vastl...

Hamburger Helper and Pink for the Cure Not all cause-related marketing is about raising money, per se. Sometimes it’s about the charity's messaging. Pictured are images from a box of Hamburger Helper, purchased within the last six months. Prominently featured on the front and back of the box is Susan G. Komen’s ‘Pink for the Cure’ campaign. And while the front makes it clear that General Mills is donating $2 million to Susan G. Komen, there’s no mention that this package of Hamburger Helper has any role in that donation. It’s on the back of the box that it becomes clear that this is about raising awareness more than raising money. At the bottom Komen lists “3 ways to help protect yourself.” Get a mammogram. Get a clinical breast exam. Learn how to do a self-examination. Nothing earth-shattering there, but like the saying goes, sometimes it’s better to be reminded of something we already know than to learn something new. For that matter, while these recommendations may be old hat fo...

[Bloggers Note: In this second half of this post I discuss the nuts and bolts of how Chili's motivates support from its employees and managers and how St. Jude 'activates' support from Chili's. Read the first half here.] How does St. Jude motivate support from Chili’s front line employees and management alike? They call it ‘activation’ and they do so by the following: They share stories of St. Jude patients who were sick and got better thanks to the services they received at the hospital. Two stories in particular are personal for Chili’s staff. A Chili’s bartender in El Dorado Hills, California named Jeff Eagles has a younger brother who was treated at St. Jude. In both 2005 and 2006 Eagles was the campaign’s biggest individual fundraiser. John Griffin, a manager at the Chili’s in Conway, Arkansas had an infant daughter who was treated for retinoblastoma at St. Jude. They drew on the support Doug Brooks… the president and CEO of Brinker International, Chili’s parent co...