Guide to Cause Marketing

Sandra Sims has done a nice piece on Cause Marketing. Its kind of a beginners guide, but she makes some great points that are reminders to us all. Here are some of the highlights, but check out the full article here

While these campaigns can be beneficial, a nonprofit-business partnerships should not be entered into lightly.  They require time, effort and often upfront costs to be successful.   So you can consider whether this may be a right for your nonprofit organization or business, this article offers a basic primer, including some examples and resources for further research.

Cause marketing partnerships must be win-win-win

I often hear from nonprofits who want corporations to “show them the money” and don’t take the time to look at it from the business’s point of view.  There must be financial, PR or some other advantage to the business in order for them to participate in any partnership. There is often a third group that must be considered, consumers, and if this promotion benefits them.

The best cause marketing campaigns benefit all three groups. As Gennefer Snowfield says, cause marketing “must be a) transparent, b) authentic, and c) integrated. The belief is that if a cause marketing initiative upholds these tenets, it will be effective in connecting the consumer, company, and cause in ways that benefit all parties.”

Benefits for nonprofit organizations

The nonprofit should have one primary goal for the campaign though.  Is it short term fundraising, a long term funding partnership, public awareness or something else?  Decide on this goal first and it will inform the rest of your decision making.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) provides a great example of cause marketing through product sales.  This year they partnered with candy brand Mike and Ike for special edition flavors with ALSF branded packaging.  The timing of the product release was intentional: September was Childhood cancer awareness month. 

Next time I was at Walgreen’s I made a point to get my hands on a box.  Will I buy other flavors of this candy in the future?  Quite possibly.  Which leads to  benefits to the business.

Benefits for businesses

As I mentioned earlier, the business must have a reason for entering into this agreement or it will simply not work for them.  After all, companies are in the business of making money, not giving it away.  Just like nonprofits, the business should have a specific goal in mind for the partnership.

Here are some of the potential benefits to businesses for entering into a cause marketing campaign:

• Sell more of an existing product by giving it a new spin
• Create new products to generate consumer interest in the brand (improving sales in the process)
• Retailers may wish to see more foot traffic into their store
• Public relations, the “halo effect” of being associated with a good cause

Benefits for Consumers

Whether your campaign involves a co-branded product or not, the viewpoint of the consumer must be taken into consideration.  What level of involvement does the public play in this campaign?  Are you asking them to buy something they wouldn’t normally just because it has your logo on it or helps fund your group?  Will the consumer perceive that participating is beneficial to them?

Also consider how easy is will be for people to participate in the campaign.  While programs such as Yoplait yogurt’s pink lids and  have been successful, be careful about requiring additional action on the part of the consumer past the initial purchase. Box Tops for Education is a similarly structured program where proof of purchase must be turned it. 

Motive Matters

It’s important to consider how a cause marketing campaign will be received so you can head-off potential objections from all three of your stakeholder audiences.

Unfortunately some potential criticisms have grown out of legitimate concerns from actual marketing promotions. Especially with the pink for breast cancer type campaigns, there are manufacturers that have jumped on the bandwagon, producing pink themed merchandise.  Wholesalers can sell these items to organizations or individuals who then use them to raise funds or as thank you gifts.  On the other hand there are many items that end up in retail store shelves that provide no financial benefit to any charity at all.

Other times you will see labels on merchandise stating that the brand “supports breast cancer awareness.”  That’s fine, but it’s a rather vague statement isn’t it.  Many consumer will not think twice about it.  Call me cynical, but when I see something like that I wonder, how do they support it?  Are they donating money or simply saying they lend support as a marketing line?

These types of actions have even led to terms such as pinkwashing and greenwashing which refer to gray area or even unethical tactics on the part of corporations. In response, the Think Before You Pink campaign calls for “more transparency and accountability by companies that take part in breast cancer fundraising, and encourages consumers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions.”  I’m sure watchdog organization exist for other causes as well.

Pink Backlash

You can hardly not notice that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. No other cause has been able to do what the Breast Cancer charities have been able to do and brand a month and own a colour. I love it.

For the first time ever though this year I have seen some articles from people warning about a Pink Backlash, or potential backlash. There seems to be some concern over how genuine the partnerships are in some instances and how much of the profit goes to the cause, while the company gets to highlight its pink credentials to its core market.

Its an interesting debate and all I would say to charities is dont undervalue your own brand, you can say No to a partnership if it isnt right for you.

Take a look at these articles on the topic

• Pink Product Fever
• Sick of Pink
• Sick of Pink Complainers

Santa Rita Hero

Santa Rita want you to nominate your Hero, You could win a trip for 2 to chile and 10k for your hero to spend in their community. I dont actually get the link between Santa Rita wine and Heroes, and its not explained on the facebook page, but still nice thing for someone to win.

Check it out here

Marketing for Change

I read about this at the weekend, it started with started with Alternatives founders Sandra & Aldagh seeing how they could apply their business competency to make a real difference in addition to the work they were doing with their selected charity. The idea is simply to bring charities and experienced marketers together. It allows the charities benefit from the experience and marketers can select projects that match their skill set and time limitations.  Check out the Marketing for Change site here

Nice idea, well done Alternatives

Adidas and Puma on Peace One Day

Im not 100% sure what to think of this. Part of me thinks its great, a great way to get two big brands involved, then part of me thinks it kind of belittles what some people have to go through in the world. What do you think?

The New Corporate Giving Trend

I noticed the Target Facebook campaign where they asked their customers (and others) to vote for a charity from a list of ten. Each of the ten would recieve a share of the 3 million dollar pot (Beth Kanter has some more info on it here). Its kind of Kiva like in its approach isnt it.

Charity Navigator have posted on their blog about another company doing something similar. Tom’s of Maine is offering five $20,000 donations to support community projects in a contest called 50 States for Good.

Charity Navigator sees this as a continuing of the trend of for profits allowing their stakeholders have a say in where their donations go. We have seen this here to a degree with companies short listing charities for a charity of the year and asking employees to vote for their “favourite”.

CN says that:

Pairing philanthropic work with customer involvement is a natural move for many companies, who typically give back a portion of their earnings to the community. By drawing new visitors to their site with an interactive experience such as voting, they engage their patrons while supporting a good cause. The Tom’s of Maine contest has drawn applications from organizations in nearly every state.

One of the issues we often face in talking to companies is how we are going to help them do their business by partnering with them and this seems like it ticks that box. I have certainly seen it lead to charities campaigning and driving people to the site of the company involved. On the down side it probably means the larger organisation will fair better in a National campaign and it may lead to a bit more competition in the market (like there isnt enough!).

Some other examples are Waitrose, who do the same thing but very very locally and Smarties in Canada who did Colours for a Cause. So this seems like the trend and the smart charities will embrace this and adapt their approaches to reflect this kind of thinking. How you do that is up to you….maybe you partner with others and approach a corporate, maybe you choose projects that customers can vote to support.

Mutual Social Responsibility

 

You know CSR…. “Corporate Social Responsibility”

“Cause-related marketing” is what we use to describe activities that are ancillary to a brand but which are not necessarily central to its proposition, for example, supporting a 10K race.

“Mutual Social Responsibility” is about inspiring the consumer and the brand to act together for common good.

Edelman are embracing this concept through their goodpurpose™ consulting, which they call “a new way to engage consumers and brands to work together to take action and effect positive social change for mutual benefit”

I like it.

You should check out their goodpurpose™ study

When 2 cents = 1 million

I’m a big fan of coin and loose change….and so am a big fan of this campaign between UNICEF Ireland and Topaz service stations.

The two have teamed up with the aim of raising 1 million euro by asking customers to add 2 cent to their bill. Great idea, 2 cents is nothing to most people.

I wonder how it will work, will staff in the store actively ask customers, will they feel comfortable asking? Or will it be a passive thing (I will fill up in Topaz next time and find out).

Fairy and Make a Wish

Fairy (the washing up liquid) are teaming up with Make a Wish once again. Similar to the Barretstown partnership Fairy are supporting the campaign with a nice TV ad (above). I wish the supporting website was a bit clearer.

CSR in SME’s

Tina Roche from Business in the Community Ireland was interviewed in Owner Manager Magazine about CSR in smaller organisations. Here are some highlights of what she had to say.

when asked what exactly CSR means. “It’s really about how ethical you are and the integrity you display towards the people you work with and supply a service to.”

“Your staff members are part of everything you do. They should all be empowered to be the best they can be. Even if you employ just one other person, you should aim for that.”

“If you look at some of the big companies, like Johnson & Johnson, they are trying to cure diabetes and that’s a real social issue. It’s a completely different business paradigm.”

Roche points out such companies will want to associate with small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that have the right corporate responsibility ethos.

“Companies can reap the full benefits if they see they can attract a diverse background of people by offering flexi- or part-time work or jobs suited around the school terms. There is a way of attracting people to your company, and it’s not just nine to five, Monday to Friday.”

“The companies we are involved with on an SME level are fantastic and are thinking this through. They may not be using the terminology, but they are doing it.”

“If you are saying you use recycled paper from sustainable forests, well then all of your suppliers have to know that. If you’re using renewable energy, then you want your energy supplier to supply you with green energy.” In other words, it’s not just coming from the big companies down, she says.

Crucial business advantages gained from being a responsible entrepreneur include reputation. “If you’re in the supply chain, it’s one of the things, apart from your price, that speaks volumes about you. If your business is putting in for tenders and everything is equal in price, what makes the difference? It’s that you’re trusted…”

Barriers affecting greater implementation of CSR are not that overwhelming, Roche believes. “The biggest one is failing to stand back and think strategically about CSR…if you start to measure and benchmark what you’re doing, simple things can lead to bigger and bigger things.”

As for the future of CSR, Roche sees more social issues being integrated into the fabric of business strategy. Companies will also start holding on to people with high-end knowledge because of the values they espouse.

Read the full article here.

Go Harvey Go!

Any interactions I have had, as a fundraiser, with Harvey Norman have been positive ones. But it clearly hasn’t come from top down.

I actually can’t believe, as reported on the Mallen Baker Blog, that its founder Gerry Harvey has said that donating to charities such as homelessness charities is “just wasted”. More, he said that because homeless people “are not putting anything back into the community” it is just “helping a whole heap of no-hopers to survive for no good reason. They are just a drag on the community”.

Gerry Harvey is worth $1.6bn and in his opinion putting it to good use would  only go to help a bunch of no-hopers who don’t put anything into society.

Here’s an idea Gerry….you could offer jobs to people who are in this position and help that way. People become homeless for many reasons. As the Mallen Baker Blog states:

The most common reasons for homelessness in Australia include domestic and family violence, eviction from previous accommodation and relationships or family breakdown….in the UK quite a large number of homeless men are ex-servicemen, people who you might think have put quite a lot into society.

Gerry Harvey probably loves controversy, and the fact that we are talking about this probably makes his day. Look here’s the thing, its his money and he can do what he wants. But without spending a cent Gerry could make a difference. I would challenge Gerry to take a risk (I’m sure he has taken many) and allow us prove him wrong.

William Hill and Breast Cancer Care – Good Partnership?

William Hill have clearly put a big budget behind their Breast Cancer Care promotion. The promotion is looking for players to deposit and spend £20 on Bingo tickets within four weeks of joining William Hill Bingo and they will then donate £10 on your behalf to Breast Cancer Care.

There are also Pink Ribbon Games where 10% from every ticket bought is donated to Breast Cancer Care.

I dont know quite what it is about this campaign, but it just doesnt sit well with me, and I think in this instance maybe it would have been one that would have been ok to walk away from.

Ok so William Hill are putting cash behind this and so it is getting the name of Breast Cancer Care out there, during their key month of October. But this campaign is pushing people to an online betting site! That just seems to be a mis-match to me…..is it because it is Bingo that they think its ok?

I know that corporate partnerships need to be a good fit for all, on paper this is. It is talking to the Breast Cancer Care target audience, it is raising money and for William Hill it is driving people to their site to sign up and play (get hooked?) on their online Bingo.

But to me it just seems like gambling is a really dodgy area for a charity to engage in (ok there could be a debate here about the lottery too). But a company like William Hill is great at engaging people and keeping them engaged in online games…and fair play to them, that is their business. But driving people to their site with these hooks….spend 20 quid and we give 10 etc….just leaves me cold.

I dont doubt that William Hill wanted to help the cause but I wonder would there have been another way to do it, that wouldnt have had such a strong call to action to play their games?

Would love to hear peoples opinions on this…Am I way off the mark here? Is it ok to take money from wherever you can get it, especially now? Or are there times that you should say…you know what this just doesnt feel right and walk away from a potential windfall?

P.S. cant see mention of the campaign on the Breast Cancer Care site!

Waitrose’s Giving Ways

Waitrose are running a really interesting campaign. When customers are checking out and have paid for their shopping they are handed a token (and a nice touch….children are given their own token when mum or dad checkout…love that. )They then get to decide on one of three local charities to support by placing their token in a bucket (picture below). The charities change every month and there is 1,000 pounds up for grabs each month.

I havent seen this in operation but blogger James Briggs has (I found James post via the Intelligent Giving Blog).

James said he observed about ten people stand in front of the box and have a good think before they made their choice. It was fascinating to see how much time and thought they put into it.

With Thousands of tokens in each bucket this experiment (even though thats not what it set out to be) has provided a fascinating insight into local giving patterns. When James was in the store it looked like helping old people is more popular than helping people with learning difficulties which is, in turn, more popular than helping build school playgrounds.

Interestingly when James was told about the buckets he was told that the learning disability charity was lagging in third place, but when he went in it had risen to third. So he wonders whether, once they got to a certain distance behind, people started giving to them because of their lack of support. 

He suggests that maybe sometimes it’s good to appeal on the basis that not many people give to you and that you’re not getting your share

Adam Rothwell of The Intelligent Giving Blog analyses the results further stating:

1. It shows that charitites might benefit from the economic downturn.OK, so when people give in Waitrose, they’re not giving their own cash. But if public sympathy for struggling charities turns out to be a general phenomenon, then giving won’t suffer as much as some charity sages are predicting.
2. It shows that people do think about giving in a serious way. Sometimes. One of the criticisms I often face as editor of this website is that, surely, nobody ever reads it, because nobody really cares about charities that much. And, though I can wheel out our visitor stats to my heart’s content, this ploy from Waitrose provides some more concrete evidence.

You can read the full post by James Briggs here
And the full Intelligent Giving Blog post here

O2 and Autism

O2 are heading into the last year of a 3 year partnership with Irish Autism Action. Over the previous two years I havent seen much in the public domain about the partnership but believe that it has been restricted mostly to internal staff fundraising and volunteering (willing to be corrected on this if Im wrong).

 

I was kind of disappointed by this as O2 must be one of the biggest spenders in terms of marketing, have a huge base of customers that could have been tapped into.

So needless to say I was delighted when I read on Damien Mulleys Blog that O2 are actually going to put some money behind the partnership.

October sees the launch of a new initiative by O2, in partnership with Irish Autism Action. It is called the Irish Autism Action Affinity. This offer is open to both prepay and post-pay O2 customers and the message is simple:

Text the key word ‘AUTISM’ to 50308 and 5% of your O2 monthly spend* will go towards autism services in your community. *Terms and conditions apply (see www.o2.ie/legal)

taken from Irish Autism Action site

Tips for Corporate Fundraising

Fundraising Ireland hosted a great seminar “Tips for Corporate Fundraising” yesterday.

It was great to hear those representing the Corporate sector state that while their departments would of course face cut backs they didnt expect those cut backs to be any more than facing other departments. Time will tell but the point being made was that any CSR/CR programmes that are being run well are providing great benefits to the organisation and therefore it will provide a competitive advantage in these more difficult times.

Another great thing during the session was the fact that the presenter from the non profit sector, Aiden Stacey, and the presenter from the for profit sector, Gerry Loughrey, were both saying the same thing, just from different view points.

So with that in mind the tips they gave are well worth a read and probably re-enforce what you are doing already.

Take a look at the presentations here.

Well done again to the organising committee of Fundraising Ireland.