tagged w/ Cause Marketing
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I’m officially declaring that selling causes is now an industry. Conferences, newsletters, specialists, advertising agencies, books, and blogs are dedicated to advancing, and profiting from, cause marketing. Brands are routinely being associate with causes, celebrities are spokespeople for charities, and fundraising has become entrenched in schools, businesses, and communities.
What’s really remarkable is that, as recently as five years ago, cause marketing was given short shrift by the mainstream marketing and advertising community. However, as cause marketing has moved from the margins to the mainstream, its ability to positively influence consumers has diminished.
As cause marketing has become ubiquitous, many consumers simply don’t notice or care about how brands have linked themselves with social issues and community organizations. Others are more likely to be skeptical of brands that incorporate causes in their marketing mix. A third group find corporations that adopt cause marketing to be offensive and opportunistic and may go as far as boycotting their brands.
Now that cause marketing has become as important, and as generic as every other marketing technique, what can you do to maximize your investment in this area?
1. Make sure you’re aligned with an issue that reflects the social purpose of your company (it should be a very close fit with your company’s history, culture, and products/ services). It should also be an issue that matters to your employees and to your customers.
2. Work in partnership with a non-profit organization that is regarded as an authority by your employees and customers. It’s surprising how often corporations deploy cause programs without non-profit partners or with organizations that are obscure or irrelevant.
3. Make your cause marketing programmatic and outcome-oriented rather than transactional (5% of sales of XZY brand goes to ABC organization). No one will pay attention to how much money has been raised. People will notice, and be influenced by, what’s been accomplished.
http://3blmedia.com/theCSRfeed/10-Sales-Will-Be-Donated-Your-favourite-Charity#I’m officially declaring that selling causes is now an industry. Conferences,... more
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Yesterday I decided to write down everything I came across that had to do with cause-marketing. What I found ran the gamut from inspiring to somewhat misleading and made me think how ubiquitous this area is becoming, how hard it is to stand for something and how hard it is to stand out. See what you think:
Russian model Natalia Vodianova heads-up the Naked Heart Foundation that helps “to provide a safe and inspiring environment in which to play for every child living in urban Russia.” (Really quite inspiring)
The New View Campaign – an initiative that was formed in 2000 “to challenge the distorted and oversimplified messages about sexuality that the pharmaceutical industry relies on to sell its new drugs.” (A Michael Moore-esque advocacy campaign)
A full page fundraising ad in the Globe and Mail for the United Way of Greater Toronto. (An intentionally disturbing full page image – one wonders who’s paying for all these ads)
A TD Friends of the Environment t-shirt worn by a skater at our local skating rink. (Nice to see that the grassroots intent of this initiative is actually seen at a local level)
A message on a Tampax carton about Protecting You. Protecting Futures – a HERO Partnership. Interestingly, the link provided (www.protectingfutures.com) goes to the Greater Cincinnati Foundation’s web site that appears to be one of P&G’s corporate partners but doesn’t reference the HEROS Partnership at all. (P&G would benefit by bringing more clarity and authenticity to this program).
Perhaps I’ll try this once a month just to see what comes up.
http://3blmedia.com/theCSRfeed/Cause-Marketing-Runs-Gamut#Yesterday I decided to write down everything I came across that had to do with... more
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Seventh Generation, the nation’s leading brand of non-toxic and environmentally-safe household and personal care products, announced today a new partnership with noted advocate Erin Brockovich and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. Together they’re launching the Million Baby Crawl, a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the nation’s badly outdated chemical laws and encourage parents and others everywhere to ask Congress to pass new stronger regulations that will protect the health of all Americans.
Synthetic chemicals are currently regulated by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a decades-old law that experts say has utterly failed to keep the nation’s environment and its citizens safe from materials that cause cancer and a host of other serious illnesses. Under the outdated TCSA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have the authority to demand the information it needs to evaluate a chemical’s risk, and neither manufacturers nor the agency are required to prove a chemical’s safety before it can be used. In fact, in the 33 years since the TCSA was enacted, the EPA has required testing on only 200 of the more than 80,000 chemical compounds now in use.
“It’s time for commonsense limits on toxic chemicals in our homes, workplaces, and in the products we use,” said Andy Igrejas of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition. “We must act together to see that new legislation is passed and families are protected from unsafe products. The Million Baby Crawl will take much more than baby steps toward making these things happen.”
Congress is writing a new proposal to reform TSCA, updating last year’s Kid-Safe Chemicals Act. Scheduled for a Fall 2009 introduction, the policy will address these and many other deficiencies by establishing tough new safety standards for each chemical on the market and requiring manufacturers to prove that their chemicals meet these standards before they can be used in the products people buy. The bill would give the EPA new authority to restrict any substances that fail to pass the test.
-- excerptSeventh Generation, the nation’s leading brand of non-toxic and... more
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On Today's Corporate Social Responsible News Podcast: Cause Marketing Reports by Performance Research + IEG; Institute of Green Professionals' Honorary Fellows; Michelle Obama's Challenge to the George Washington University + Volunteer MatchOn Today's Corporate Social Responsible News Podcast: Cause Marketing Reports by... more
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