Conversations in Cause Marketing

This post is part of a blogging series by marketing students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here. By Rachel Roberts Do you ever worry whether or not the plastic recyclables that you have saved for two weeks and put out for collection will really be recycled?  Well there is a [...]

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This post is part of a year-end series by MBA students at California College of the Arts’ Design MBA Program. Read more about our annual partnership here. Tall, lean, leaves blowing in the wind and all natural – trees are pretty sexy . . .right? What about global warming, conservation or recycling? For many, not [...]

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This post is part of a year-end series by MBA students at California College of the Arts’ Design MBA Program. Read more about our annual partnership here. By Sandra Negron Green consumerism is an essential building block in the development of a green economy. Green consumers aren’t easily defined by their age, income or ethnicity. [...]

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By Jamie Sand-Goldberger According to a McKinsey Corporate survey, 92 percent of senior executives from around the world agree that consideration of environmental challenges will be one of the central issues of the 21st century.  Successful firms are realizing that cognizance around environmental values is saving them money and improving shareholder performance, so much so [...]

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Marcello Manca is Vice President & General Manager of UL Environment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Underwriters Laboratories (UL), a global leader in product testing and safety certification for more than a century. UL Environment (ULE) was launched in January 2009, and the organization has more than doubled in size over the past year.  Read on [...]

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I haven’t been blogging too much ’round these parts lately, mostly because I’ve been busy creating the types of videos and films I’m about to feature, but Liberty Mutual’s latest short, “Good Vibrations” made me stop in my tracks so I decided to make the time to share it with all of you. (No need [...]

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Over the summer, I featured a remarkable woman, Sloane Berrent as part of my Philanthropy in Five series, who has literally dedicated her life to doing good, spreading good and seeing the good in others. It’s rare to find someone who walks the walk and talks the talk, but Sloane definitely puts her money where [...]

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A few weeks ago, I featured Walden University’s new advertising campaign, centering around their social change-focused brand positioning: “A higher degree. A higher purpose.” I was instantly struck by their TV spot because they put their money where their tagline is in demonstrating the end result of a Walden University degree, and spotlighting the change [...]

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There’s no denying that there are few things more influential than Hollywood. From blockbuster movies to TV shows to the latest in celebrity fashion, these things inform popular culture, and leave an emotional impact on us. So, imagine the vast possibilities of harnessing the power of the entertainment industry to generate awareness of important social [...]

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Tom’s of Maine is one of those companies that’s a shining example of social responsibility done right. It’s never been about flavor-of-the-month cause marketing or flashy ad campaigns or even gimmicky product extensions like bubble-gum flavored toothpaste. It’s always been about quality products, customer service and a core mission to giving back. And they are [...]

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Follow @TheChildFund to Donate Gifts to Kids Around the World Nonprofits have had much success harnessing the power of the social web (specifically, Twitter) in generating awareness for their causes and motivating action. From Stacey Monk’s Tweetsgiving initiative to the multi-location Twestivals, and countless campaigns in between, Twitter has become a viable cause marketing channel [...]

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A “plant-a-tree” campaign doesn’t necessarily leap to mind as the pinnacle in innovative cause marketing. In fact, when I first heard about Government Solutions Group, a company that facilitates cause-related marketing between brands and state parks, it conjured images of elementary school students filing into fields with their seedlings tucked inside paper cups for a [...]

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Over the weekend, I caught a commercial for Walden University, one of the many online education institutions that’s popped over the past decade. But unlike the other universities that boast the benefits attending classes online and accelerated degree programs, Walden focuses on cultivating the social change leaders of tomorrow. Their new positioning, “A higher degree. [...]

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Last week I featured Greenwala founder, Rajeev Kapur in my Philanthropy in Five series, and I was impressed with his goals for the site as well as his ideas for helping to push eco consciousness into the mainstream in fun, creative ways. Well, he just rolled out one such endeavor with “Greenwala Contests,” a series [...]

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This month, Hamburger Helper launched their ‘Land A Helping Hand’ campaign in partnership with Feeding America, featuring Beyonce as their official celebrity spokesperson. Causes often use celebs and high profile figures as a way to reach the mainstream market and quickly generate mass exposure, so I wasn’t all that surprised to see the golden-flocked femme [...]

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Last week, Cone Inc., the leader in cause branding, research and innovation, in partnership with Intangible Business, unveiled their latest study,”‘The Nonprofit Power Brand 100,” marking a departure from more traditional financially-valuated rankings. This first-of-its-kind research explores the unique relationship between nonprofit brand image and financial performance, and revealed that some organizations may be leaving [...]

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This week, the blogosphere was a buzz with the launch of Alice.com, a direct-to-consumer start-up committed to helping you never run out of toilet paper again. And a whole bunch of other consumer packaged good items that are always a hassle to run out to the store for. From Tech Crunch to Mashable to Venture [...]

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It’s no secret that Microsoft is often on my list as examples of big corporations still wrapped in an old way of thinking under the guise of faux consciousness. And I haven’t been overly impressed with Microsoft’s innovation platform or social responsibility efforts… until now. With the launch of their new decision engine (and the [...]

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I’m typically skeptical when big corporations launch “green” initiatives, automatically assuming that their newfound eco-consciousness stance is an attempt to grab today’s earth-minded consumer, and elevate their brand in the process. And more often than not, that’s unfortunately the case, using causes and environmental issues to create the perception of social responsibility, while their commitment [...]

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Social media has opened the door floodgates when it comes to causes getting the word out to consumers, but with the overwhelming amounts of information available online (and that’s an understatement), it’s often difficult to ensure message retention, or even that your issue will rise above the clutter as other organizations vie for attention. So, [...]

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As someone who spends a good amount of time on Twitter, I’ve had the great fortune of connecting with some truly amazing people, many of whom continue to educate me on cause marketing — sometimes without even realizing it. One such person is Cyan Banister, founder of Zivity, an online portfolio site for models, artists [...]

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On the social web, the only thing that exceeds the number of social media “experts” and “gurus” out there are the number of names for those who practice it. From social media marketers to customer engagement specialists, everyone seems to be selling something. But while the term social marketing has nothing to do with social [...]

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Yesterday, Zemanta, an application that suggests tags, links, photos, and related articles to enrich your blog based on keywords extracted from the text of your posts, launched its “Blogging for a Cause” campaign. Putting up $3,000 of their own money, Zemanta is asking bloggers to write about their favorite nonprofits, the top five of which [...]

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When attempting to connect consumers with causes, there is no greater tie than tapping into the local community. While high profile causes are important, often tmes, unless it affects someone directly, it is difficult to forge that compelling personal connection. And there are many types of local causes that need support, where consumers can relate [...]

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With so many companies jumping on the “do good” bandwagon, even more names have emerged for the concept itself — cause marketing, cause-related marketing, cause branding, green marketing, conscious marketing, marketing with meaning, social good marketing, social change marketing and a slew of others. Even the umbrella term of corporate social responsibility is often used [...]

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Most cause marketing discussions center around marketing the company, product, or service that has partnered with a non-profit organization. Few focus on nonprofits marketing themselves as a means to gain awareness for their cause. And fewer still, discuss how causes can rally support from a government standpoint. But, for many nonprofits, this is a critical [...]

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Consumer brands heavyweight Procter & Gamble is done sitting on the social media sidelines. Recent rumors have revealed the company has determined that social media is the future of marketing. This isn’t surprising, with the great success and evangelism-charged growth of smaller, values-driven companies such as Seventh Generation. Fast-growing Seventh Generation is now also distributing [...]

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While the definition and nomenclature around cause marketing varies considerably, there are certain elements that everyone can agree on from an execution standpoint. It 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 [...]

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Photo credit: Nick Dunlop With cause marketing becoming an increasingly hot topic, many companies are “cause washing” their brands, similar to that of greenwashing, in an attempt to create the perception of social consciousness without an authentic connection to the cause. Other companies use charitable donations as a promotion to increase sales with only a [...]

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Anyone who’s heavily immersed Cause Marketing, is already well aware of Cone Inc., and it’s virtually impossible to perform a search on the topic without inevitably returning several results with Cone’s many research studies or commentary. They have spent the past 28 years advising businesses and nonprofits on effective cause engagement, and are without question, [...]

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