Merritt Colaizzi

Where social media meets cause marketing

By Merritt Colaizzi on April 6, 2010 | 14 Comments

Bob Gilbreath, chief marketing strategist at Bridge Worldwide and author of “Marketing with Meaning,” spoke concisely and actionably — two of SmartBrief on Social Media readers’ favorite attributes! — at yesterday’s IAB Social Media Marketplace session “Social Media, World Events and the New Face of Cause Marketing.”

He led with stats that got the attention of the 300-plus brand representatives in the room:

  • 71% of consumers are giving as much or more now as they were before the economic downturn.
  • 87% of consumers would switch brands based on association with a good cause.
  • 50% of consumers would pay more for products from brands that support causes.

As a preface to a fascinating discussion with BlogHer founder Jory Des Jardins and Quincy Jones Productions (think “We Are the World”) Vice President Adam Fell, Gilbreath offered this excellent, short list of cause marketing do’s:

  1. Create a cause linked to your brand purpose. E.g. Pepsi Refresh Project. Beware of greenwashing, pinkwashing and jumping on irrelevant bandwagons.
  2. Make sure it’s meaningful. E.g. the MAC Viva Glam initiative, which gives 100% of all purchases on an annual basis.
  3. Invest in it for the long haul. E.g. Yoplait’s Save Lids to Save Lives, which is 11 years strong.
  4. Create something employees can get engaged with. E.g. Innocent Brand’s The Big Knit project, which got employees learning knitting from elders and making hats to benefit Help for the Aged.
  5. Act quickly. E.g. Tide’s Loads of Hope. Trucks filled with washers were sent to help Hurricane Katrina victims clean up.
  6. Something that’s brand-relevant. E.g. Haagen-Dazs Help the Honeybees initiative, which sent lobbyists to Capitol Hill to participate in the honeybee shortage.

Rules to prosper by — and feel good about.

Image credit: DeVries Public Relations

greenwashing

Related posts:

  1. SmartBrief on: Mobile marketing meets social media
  2. Where next for location marketing?
  3. Michael Brito: Straight talk on location-based social marketing

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Responses

  • Posted by uberVU - social comments on April 6th, 2010 at 8:02 am

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by EmilyMolitor: Fascinating session at #IABSM. RT @sbosm Where social media meets cause marketing http://bit.ly/cJTZI9...

  • Posted by Brett on April 6th, 2010 at 3:10 pm

    great post- thnx

  • Posted by Steve Latham on April 6th, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    I've presented cause marketing opportunities (using social media as the vehicle) to several clients, and one issue that often surfaces is that in large companies the online marketing, brand management and direct response groups, are completely disconnected from community relations and corporate giving programs.

    This wall that exists between corporate giving and marketing is often quite high. Marketers are typically restricted from supporting charitable organizations (through a cause marketing campaign) that are not already approved. If they go to the corp giving department, their ideas are usually met with a "thanks but no thanks – we've got it covered" mentality. If you can get past the empire building and actually get the departments to work together, you'll still have to deal with a lot of red tape and slow progress.

    So while social media is the ideal medium for promoting a cause marketing effort, unless it bubbles up inside of the community relations department, great marketing / giving opportunities often die on the whiteboard due to politics and organizational dysfunction. It's quite a shame.

    Steve Latham, ceo Spur Interactive
    http://twitter.com/stevelatham
    My recent post Twitter Weekly Updates for @SpurInteractive

  • Posted by Gabe Chesman on April 6th, 2010 at 4:12 pm

    Great post. Those were perfect examples of each rule.
    My recent post CSR Stats

  • Posted by Why we don’t see more cause marketing at Spur Interactive on April 6th, 2010 at 10:40 am

    [...] morning I read a Smartblogs article on Social Media and Cause Marketing.  It correctly points out that social media is an ideal platform for corporate cause marketing [...]

  • Posted by @FootSolutions on April 6th, 2010 at 7:32 pm

    Great post, thanks for sharing!
    Because of the nature of our business, we teamed up with the nonprofit Soles4Souls and have been collecting shoes to donate to those in need. The benefits of having a cause marketing program have been absolutely amazing. When the earthquake struck Haiti in January, people around the country began donating shoes by the thousands. The overwhelming response left us in awe- young children hosted neighborhood shoe drives, one person drove from Canada to the U.S with a truck full of shoes, stores had shoes piled to the ceiling because they didn't want to turn anyone away. Shipping companies even chipped in to help relieve some of the costs of shipping shoes.

    Great post – those are pretty amazing statistics above. I would encourage all companies to create some type of cause marketing program. It's refreshing to have a 'feel good' program that boosts energy and morale in the company.

  • Posted by Bob Gilbreath on April 7th, 2010 at 7:17 pm

    Thanks for the kind words and comments about our presentation, folks!

    I'm interested to hear more about whether or not you all see "crisis giving" or "speed of need" cause marketing as a rising trend…Can/should we get big brands to react to needs that arise in real time – or will they continue to rely on careful, long-term planning?

    Bob Gilbreath
    My recent post Bounty Experiments in Brand Experience

  • Posted by Luana Lewis on April 7th, 2010 at 3:25 pm

    .BBB has guidelines in the area of cause marketing that can benefit marketers. All cause marketing claims in your campaign should disclose the WHO-WHAT-WHEN terms of your offer. WHO: Say specifically which charities are benefited. Of course, they should be real charities (check charities at bbb.org). Be sure to get the charity's written permission to use its name! WHAT: It isn't good enough simply to say "A portion of the proceeds will benefit Charity XYZ." List the percentage or flat fee that the charity will get as a result of the purchase, and be sure to spell out any maximums, limitations, or conditions that affect your donation offer. WHEN: Specify the period of time when your offer is valid. For example: "We will donate $1 to Charity XYZ for every teeshirt sold in October 2009, up to a maximum donation of $10,000." Terms and conditions need to be disclosed at the point of solicitation. Is this easy to do in the tiny-text world of social media? Well, it's a challenge! But sticking to the BBB's WHO-WHAT-WHEN best practices can save you a lot of trouble and help to avoid PR disasters when you are doing good with cause marketing efforts.

  • Posted by Cause Marketing at the Speed of Need: #IABSM | MarketingTypo.com on April 12th, 2010 at 10:46 am

    [...] through its honeybee campaign and promotional flavor. The slides above show what I covered, and this article in Tuesday’s SmartBrief on Social Media captures the session [...]

  • Posted by Cause Criteria: Consumers Get Cause-centric, Should Your Brand Follow? « Mindgruve: The Feed on April 13th, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    [...] “59% of Americans are more likely to buy a product associated with the partnership.” Similarly, Bob Gilbreath reports that 71% of consumers continue to give despite the economic downturn, 87% would switch to a [...]

  • Posted by MJ Radosevich, MBA on April 20th, 2010 at 8:08 pm

    Thanks Merrit for posting the various articles regarding cause marketing. As an instructor of Marketing Management at Marylhurst University-Portland, Oregon these current examples are helpful in demonstrating cause marketting concepts and firms attempting to differentiate their brand through CSR partnerships.

  • Posted by Cause marketing « Ekatonline's Blog on April 20th, 2010 at 2:15 pm

    [...] 20, 2010 Check this article on some cause marketing highlights. And here go some interesting facts picked up from this [...]

  • Posted by MerrittColaizzi on April 20th, 2010 at 9:25 pm

    Oh good, MJ, glad to hear it. Please let us know if you'd ever be interested in writing a guest blog post for us about concepts you're teaching in your class. Our audience is social media marketers, so we're especially dialed into social media connections to CSR. We would welcome some of the latest thinking from the world of academia!

  • Posted by graphicdesigner on May 6th, 2010 at 4:33 am

    this is a great post. it's very true that these days organizations have to do more to stand out. what better way than through cause marketing where you can show your true colours and help those in need while generating good PR at the same time. brilliant!
    My recent post Effective Target Marketing – Tips for Small Business Owners

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