Basics of Cause Marketing

These days the term “Cause Marketing” seems to be on everyone’s lips – and for me, it’s a topic that I just love learning and talking about. I think it’s the fact that it blurs the lines between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors and requires collaboration and “cross-pollination” to work. As the field becomes more saturated – with companies, nonprofits, marketers and consultants all jumping on the bandwagon – it’s important to understand just what Cause Marketing is and why it’s a powerful tool for nonprofits to promote their missions and for companies to better communicate with and build loyalty in their stakeholders. With that in mind, these are just a few of my favorite Cause Marketing (CM for short) resources.

First, a basic definition: Wikipedia says that:

Cause marketing or cause-related marketing refers to a type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a “for profit” business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit. The term is sometimes used more broadly and generally to refer to any type of marketing effort for social and other charitable causes, including in-house marketing efforts by non-profit organizations. Cause marketing differs from corporate giving (philanthropy) as the latter generally involves a specific donation that is tax deductible, while cause marketing is a marketing relationship generally not based on a donation.

And therein lies the key point about CM: unlike charitable giving that comes from the goodness of your (or your company’s) heart, CM in many ways can feel much more like a transactional business relationship (that is to say, a nonprofit and a business partner together in ways that achieve both parties’ stated goals and objectives - the nonprofit gains exposure/money/new donors while the company gets to highlight its committment to the community and its consumers). This idea may take some getting used to for strict nonprofiteers out there, and they’re right: this is not philanthropy. Nonetheless, CM is on its own a powerful vehicle to promote worthwhile causes and garner consumer support and attention.

For more history on CM, check out the rest of that Wikipedia article or take a look at this Foundation Center article. Both have a lot of great info and discuss some of the earliest CM campaigns, including American Express’s 1983 campaign to restore the Statue of Liberty (the Foundation Center article also includes a long list of books and articles on the topic).

Now moving beyond the basic history lesson: Back in April I had the good fortune to attend a talk at the Boston University School of Management with Stephanie Smirnov, president at DeVries Public Relations (you can follow Stephanie on her blog or on Twitter at @ssmirnov). Even though I don’t know Stephanie all that well, she has been incredibly kind to allow me to share a portion of her terrific “Cause 101″ power point presentation on The Changebase. It’s a great overview of the field and how companies are using CM to engage with their consumers, especially women. Most of all, I love the last slide which provides a decision-making roadmap for companies considering whether to implement a cause campaign (proving that cause campaigns are harder to put together than you might think!).

Cause Marketing 101

There are so many other resources for CM information, news, and best practices. Some of my favorites include:

Organizations:

  • Cone, Inc.: When it comes to CM, Cone truly is a leader. How do I know? Try telling anyone that you’re interested in CM and see if their first recommendation isn’t Cone. FYI, they call it Cause Branding.
  • Cause Marketing Forum: I hear they put on a terrific conference every year. Also, check out the links on the left margin – they’ve posted some great articles, cases and even a job board for CM openings!

Blogs:

  • CauseMarketing.biz: A really interesting blog with some very insightful thoughts/comments about recent and current successes (and flops) in CM.
  • Selfish Giving: ”A Cause Marketer’s Musings on Doing Well and Good”. This blog is run by @joewaters - not only are his posts smart and relevant, so are his tweets.

(Ashley’s note: while I’m a big fan of CM, not everyone is. On the Selfish Giving blog, there’s recently been an interesting debate about the purpose and supposed benefits of CM. The post is called “Defending Cause Marketing” and beyond the blog, it’s worth reading the comments. Quite a discussion!)

Twitter Folks to Follow:

Campaigns I like:

  • Pedigree Adopt-A-Dog: a great example of a campaign that works on so many levels.
  • Product Red: perhaps one of the most famous CM campaigns.
  • Dove Campaign for Real Beauty: a very powerful campaign with great ads….until rumors started swirling that they had actually touched up some of the images. Regardless of the truth, Dove serves as a great reminder that cause campaigns must be authentic and transparent or consumers/bloggers will pounce!

Related Resources:

  • One of things I like most about CM is how it plays so nicely into the idea of branding and communicating Corporate Social Responsibility programs. At the 2008 Net Impact Conference, I had the chance to hear from Kellie McElhaney, Co-Director of the Center for Responsible Business at Haas. She had just written a book called “Just Good Business” which centers around the idea of aligning a company’s brand and CSR focus (which is actually easier said than done). It’s not strictly CM, but it’s a related concept so I thought I’d include it. Check out Kellie speaking about her book here.

I hope this has served as a first deep-dive into the world of Cause Marketing. It’s an exciting take on Doing Good, especially as more companies try to raise consumer awareness around their community work, and as more nonprofits need to consider new ways to raise funds in a tough economy.