Category — cause related marketing

It’s easy to think that only “big business” can afford to make a statement or have an impact with cause marketing. How can the little guy wield such power?

Performing artist, Ginger Sands, with her new release “Back to the Garden” proves otherwise. An independent performer and song writer, Sands has a passion for healthy eating and sustainable foods. She has seamlessly tied her two loves together by making music with a message.

It doesn’t take a multi-million dollar advertising campaign for your voice to be heard. Just a little creativity and a big desire to make a difference. Every NPO has such inspirational advocates if we can find a way to partner with them, each using their own special gifts, to spread the word, build new bridges, and support good works.

To learn more about Sands and her new release, visit www.gingersands.com.

My daughter is almost ten years old. Recently she had been ruthlessly pursuing the question of Santa Claus. “Mom, admit it! You’re Santa,” she said over and over again. So, I admitted it. She was shocked and dismayed despite the fact that she already knew the answer.

She came back to me a few days later and wanted to know if it was okay with me if she pretended that she didn’t know. She wants to still have a Santa in her Christmas.

I think that many of us feel the same way. We want Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. We want the mythology that makes our lives rich and magical. We especially want the bigger-than-life characters and the textures of our youth. Companies that perpetuate these myths can be among the most powerful icons in society.

Think about the myths in your corporate culture, whether nonprofit or for profit. The Salvation Army kettle, the Red Cross, the conductor of your orchestra… these are powerful symbols that have great value. If weilded with integrity and purpose, they can rally even the most reluctant partners to BELIEVE.

Imagine you are suddenly a celebrity – well known and influential. To what end would you use your new-found notoriety?

Many use celebrity to line their own pockets through celebrity product endorsements. Sometimes, these are very successful but there is always the risk of overexposure (like Peyton Manning and Tiger Woods) and a perceived lack of sincerely. The right check can certainly give one an affection for just that shade of lip color or than medical miracle.

There are some celebrities who take a different route. They use their power and influence in the marketplace to support a cause. For some, this may be a fleeting gesture devised by a savvy public relations firm. These are rarely impactful and may actually detract from long term goals.

However, there are those few who offer us a great model to follow when we become rich and famous. Take Michael J. Fox as an example: he has an intensely person relationship with Parkinson’s Disease and has used his celebrity to raise awareness and funds for a cure. He has a foundation, a facebook cause, billboards and much more. Another of my favorites is Dolly Parton, a cultural icon and brilliant business woman. She created Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library which now partners with 47 states plus Canada and the UK to provide books to children from birth to age 5. Her passion is genuine and her impact is enduring.

Obviously, there are opportunities and pitfalls to working with celebrities but it is a great way to boost your cause and its place in the increasing clutter of the nonprofit world. Just pick your partners wisely. Meanwhile, I’ll check my mailbox for that instant millionaire check I’ve been expecting…

Well, I suppose I should not be surprised that the topic to get me back on the blogging bandwagon would be the upcoming Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. Already the newspaper, television and store shelves look like a baby shower gone haywire. Pink is everywhere!

On one hand, I’m thrilled to see that the cornerstone of cause marketing is still going strong despite the economic downturn. On the other hand, the dilution of the message and the saturation of the marketplace make me worry.

If it seems that every product (from boxing gloves to vacuum cleaners) has a pink tie-in, how do you know what really matters? One thing you can do is to read the fine print. For example, many products claim that a “portion of the proceeds” benefit cancer research. What is a portion? It can be as little as a few pennies per product or all of the profit from that product. Is there a preset gift relationship in place? Look to see if a specific organization is mentioned to the promotion. If not, who knows where the money goes?

It has, in many ways, become too easy for businesses to add their float to this particular parade. The point of marketing partnerships is to enhance both brands and to build distinction in the marketplace and in the minds of consumers. Perhaps a few more unique partnerships with realistic product ties would benefit these businesses more? The pie should be big enough for lots of causes to have a piece. In the meantime, on with the parade!

I attended a conference this past week and was surprised by the experience in one of the sessions. Although the topic was a good one, the speaker seemed knowledgeable and the audience was enthusiastic, the outcome was basically a train wreck.

I have given a lot of thought as to what happened and tried to analyze where things went wrong – after all, I spend most of my time working with groups of people and my goal is to build business and nonrpofit partnerships. How could a seemingly positive setting with positive participants have a negative outcome?

Here’s what I think: the speaker couldn’t find middle ground with his audience because he didn’t give enough thought to WHERE we all started. Let’s take my train wreck analogy a bit further. Assume that you are driving a train on the tracks and you want to have a successful trip. Maybe you even want to add more passengers to your train along the way. Well, both goals require that you know the LOCATION of other trains and potential passengers – right?

In this session, the leader had a very clear perspective on his topic and, as it turned out, it was not the same perspective as most of the people in the room. He started right in with his material and laid out his “tracks” to success. The problem is that the other people were coming from other directions and his “tracks” didn’t reach them from the start. We couldn’t catch up becuase he didn’t give us the resources or guidance to make the trip.

Lesson learned? Any partnership, whether a learning environment or a business partnership, begins with a roadmap (or train map) and maps only help you to find the place where you can meet others and find agreement if you know from where each participant starts the journey. Ask questions, do your research and know your environment – then we can find common ground.

I have a great friend who owns a Smoothie King  franchise and is always thinking about business.  As a native of Nashville, he has connections that go all the way back to elementary school – and smartly keeps everyone aware of his stores and products.

He never pushes too hard – no one runs when they see him coming as far as I know – but when you think of Tom, you think of Smoothie King. He knows his goal and lives it. If you ask any successful business person or nonprofit leader, they will tell you the same. You must be your own best advocate and your best advertising.

This is one of the reasons that consumer based marketing and cause marketing are so effective. Better than advertising on television or expensive four color print, your friends (old and new) tell your story with enthusiasm and truth.

So, in the best or worst economy, the same practices hold true… love what you do, build relationships with vision and passion, and create your own personal army who will do the same.

I was at a meeting at the Center for Nonprofit Management in Nashville, TN a few weeks ago and the director was quoted as saying “Never Waste A Crisis.” Of course this sounds like a contradiction but it made perfect sense in the context. We were talking about nonprofits and the need to focus on our core missions and be realistic about our programs and our roles within the community.

After the meeting, I started thinking about the wider implications of this idea in the current economic climate. Almost everyone and every business I know is facing some level of “crisis” and some have been more introspective than others. Clearly, some difficulties are just plain lousy. Some, however, really can be a hidden opportunity or at least a wake-up call.

We cannot rewind the clock and make different choices before the economic downturn began. We can’t rethink a greedy growth mode or undo the program or partnership that was clearly off the mark. We CAN use these lessons and their results to build strong partnerships now – ones that will serve in tough times and will only grow in impact as things improve again. So, don’t waste the crisis… live, learn and look forward.

I had the chance last week to speak to a group of young professionals interested in nonprofit leadership about the power of a nonprofit brand. In some ways, it might be closing the barn door after the horse is gone. However, it is still a powerful message: Your brand can save you during difficult times.

Whether you run a billion dollar corporation or a small neighborhood nonprofit, you “are” your reputation. The brands that we trust are our comfort and the backbone of our self image. The less robust brands are blurred even more when we are choosing consumer spending and charitable giving in a tight economy. This is even more true when we try to combine our brands through the strength of cause marketing programs and partnerships.

American Marketers Association defines a brand as basically the logo, icon or image that provides a visual representation of your company. I don’t disagree with this but I don’t think it goes far enough. A strong brand speaks to your audience in an emotional and very personal way.

I drink Diet Coke – not Diet Pepsi. Why? Well, I like the taste but it’s also a brand that means more to me. I remember the group of people trying to “teach the world to sing” on top of a hill and my aunt once had a vintage coke machine full of those wonderful little glass bottles.  Coke tastes better in little glass bottles.

So, even when times are not their best, your brand can evoke strong emotions, revive positive memories and instill confident. Maybe it can also make you smile.

I’ve been reading a lot the past two weeks about concerns for the future of eco-chic or, as some are calling it, eco-nomics. For the past few years, the IN thing has been environmentally conscious consumption. This has appeared in every consumer segment from fashion design and housewares to hybrid cars and organic produce.

So… the question is now being raised whether our commitment to such things is only skin deep – or should I say pocket deep? When there is less money to spend, will we revert to our cheapo, pre-packaged, junk up the landfill former selves? My thoughts? Probably.

I do think that we have made some lasting change in consumer trends. In fact, this belief is at the very core of cause related marketing and cause branding. We hope that affiliations between good couses and good brands makes a difference. These differences, according to research, will have the greatest lasting impact with younger consumers who are still developing consumer behavior and brand preferences.

Still, these choices are self-conscious and deliberate. Consumers describe themselves as making an effort to choose brands with CRM ties and to give themselves a check in the “I did good” box each time. The concern is which box will carry the most weight when debt is high and credit is low.  Personally, I’d love to buy organic all of the time but I sometimes end up buying the frozen veggies on sale that week.  I also want to buy the cosmetics that support a breast cancer awareness cause but I’m still sorely tempted by the brand with the two-for-one sale.

Maybe we need to develop something like a green piggy bank… where we can serve two masters at once. I haven’t figured that out yet but I’m working on it.

Breast Cancer Awareness (October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month) is the motherlode of cause related marketing. Perhaps second only to “green marketing,” it is the most recognizable branding opportunity with a cause in the United States.

Some of its tools are simple: the pink ribbon and, for that matter, pink ANYTHING. In many ways, Breast Cancer causes now OWN pink. Can you think of any other business or NPO that can claim ownership of a color!? I would be curious to know how much value the cause receives overall from this juggernaut.

This type of market saturation has its ups and downs.  Avon, for example, was one of the first CRM leaders in this field. It has done outstanding good work and has also built brand strength through the relationship. Yoplait ’s ”save lids to save lives“ is another outstanding success story and multiple award winning campaign.

On the flipside, there is a preponderance of pink out there, especially during October.  For a list of some of the best and worst, visit Think Before Your Pink.  This site and its creators in Breast Cancer Action raise concerns about the true financial benefits to the cause of some campaigns and the general issue of whether we can “shop away” breast cancer.

In my Sunday local paper this week, I found pink campaigns for batteries, yogurt, breakfast cereal, soup, link rollers, credit cards, and laundry detergent. Which ones are worthy of our attention and support?

I guess the bottomline is, as always, buyer beware.  There are some wonderful CRM projects out there doing great work for all of the partners involved. However, it takes a savvy consumer to do the greatest good and to vote with our purchases on the best of the best.