tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54782637225011614892012-01-25T06:19:52.797-08:00AtriadesAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comBlogger8381100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-26114334034345073722012-01-25T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.852-08:00Made in America Cause MarketingLiberty Bottleworks fabricates rugged water bottles in brand-new factory in Yakima, Washington of recycled aluminum and using America-made machinery. Liberty is the only company making metal water bottles in America today.While that sinks in a little consider that Liberty also has a strong cause marketing component with its partner Big City Mountaineers (BCM), a Denver nonprofit that gives urban Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-36701398630296266902012-01-24T13:25:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:19:52.823-08:00Marketing Automation RoundtableI participated in a great round table discussion at the Mass Technology Leadership Council this morning. The group discussion touched on a wide range of issues related to deploying marketing automation systems. Some of the key success factors are summarized below by stage: Planning Executive buy-in and expectation management: To be successful, marketing automation projects require integration Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-12205806895937922742012-01-24T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.852-08:00Nike Vet Keeps Bike Inner Tubes Out of the Landfill and Benefits the Humane SocietyPaul Fidrych left a promising career at Nike to start a business with his wife that takes old bike inner tubes and upcycles them into useful things like dog collars, chew toys and water dishes. All while benefiting the Humane Society chapter in Portland. The company is cleverly named Cycle Dog.To me that business model sounded like the much-heralded company TerraCycle, which upcycles juice Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-65380442557380413342012-01-23T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.852-08:00Teva’s BOGO Cause Marketing Returns Company's Philanthropy to its Watery OriginsTeva, the footwear company, started out making sandals for Colorado River Guides. And at its founding in 1984, Teva supported the nonprofit Save the Colorado, as it still does today. But as the company grew the footprint of its corporate philanthropy got ever-wider and more diffuse.No one likes to say to worthy causes with compelling stories, after all.But in this exclusive interview on the topicAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-39346183288603415172012-01-20T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.853-08:00Cause Marketing Your Athletic PerformanceIn the 1926 World Series Babe Ruth heard about 11-year-old Johnny Sylvester, a New York boy who had been hurt in an accident and was in the hospital desperately ill. The Babe rushed to the hospital to visit Sylvester and promised to hit a home run on his behalf. The next day the Sultan of Swat hit not one but three home runs for the youngster. Sylvester rallied, went to Princeton, served in WorldAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-69172812525752514462012-01-19T13:09:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:19:52.823-08:00Channel Marketing from a Sales and Marketing PerspectiveComplexity and Diversity at ScaleChannel marketing in large high tech companies is one of the most complex and diverse operational activities in all of marketing. Complexity and diversity are pervasive across: market, product, program, even organizational structure. Channel Management groups typically report to either marketing or sales. The trend today favors the sales reporting approach, Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-53001575420760357892012-01-19T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.853-08:00Cause Marketing Your BirthdayMy birthday is in February and recently I got the notice at the left from Crowdrise, a free online platform and social media site that helps you raise money for causes you care about.It’s similar, in several respects, to the friends and family fundraising platform that comes your way when you sign up to participate in a race event on behalf of Komen, the American Diabetes Association or the Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-89750817525299981722012-01-18T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.853-08:00Cause Marketing the Auto ShowsIt’s prime auto show season right now across the country. The two biggest shows, the Detroit auto show is going on right now, while the Chicago show is coming up in early February. My home state’s much more modest show took place last weekend.(At left is a Subaru, which offers its own cause marketing effort called Share the Love.)All of which begs the question, how might auto shows utilize cause Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-84915417981095270932012-01-17T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.853-08:00Kroger’s Giving Hope a Hand Campaign is Gaining MomentumKroger’s Giving Hope a Hand campaign, an anti-breast cancer effort is gaining momentum for much the same reasons that General Mills’ Boxtops for Education and Campbell’s Labels for Education have; it’s opened up the effort to other brands.That is, Giving Hope a Hand… like Campbell’s Labels for Education and General Mills Boxtops for Education… has made the leap from its exclusive relationship Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-56191231640948424942012-01-16T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.853-08:00The Cause Marketing ScriptCurrent theory from Professor Ronald K. Mitchell at Texas Tech suggests that the people most likely to be a success at entrepreneurship are those who understand that there is an ‘entrepreneurship script.’I contend that there is also a script in cause marketing.In entrepreneurship the script, says Mitchell (who like Bob McDonald, the CEO of Procter & Gamble, and yours truly is an alumnus of the Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-69609046667014419432012-01-13T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.854-08:00One (Bronx) Cheer for Philanthropist Kim KardashianFox News reports that reality star Kim Kardashian is pocketing 90 percent of the money raised from her eBay Giving Works auctions.The auctions ostensibly benefit the Dream Foundation, which grants wishes to terminally-ill adults. Kardashian's father died of cancer. But Fox found that only 10 percent of the money actually went to the cause, something she states openly on her blog when promoting Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-43867753712720964412012-01-12T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.854-08:00Finding More Donors With the Ultimate QuestionA couple of years back I sat in on a very interesting presentation by Ryan Davies of Progrexion, a multi-disciplinary marketing research firm.One of Progrexion’s house specialties is customer satisfaction surveys, one of the more dreary parts of marketing research. You know what I mean if you’ve ever been subjected to a customer satisfaction survey that runs 4 pages single-spaced in about 9-pointAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-22761447065745842142012-01-11T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.854-08:00Cause Marketing Circa 2022The current issue of Fortune magazine, modestly called 'The Future Issue,' examines what the world and the world of business will be like ten years hence in 2022.Fortune’s prognosticators see video projected on every window surface, 3-D printers on every desktop, smart holographic table tops as in the movie Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, real-time subtitles for teleconferences, and apps thatAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-65144820593728709942012-01-10T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.854-08:00Amazon, I'm Calling You OutIn 2011, Amazon’s sales were $43.59 billion and its profit was $7.64 billion. It is the world’s biggest etailer. That's part of their Seattle headquarters at the left.And how much did Amazon donate to charity? It's not clear. Although I suspect that MercyCorps and the Red Cross have both received meaningful donations from Amazon.com.We do, however, know that Amazon.com spent $1.5 million in Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-16261261225384669112012-01-09T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.854-08:00What I Learned When I Bought a Starbuck Indivisible WristbandSince November 1, 2011 Starbucks has been doing its best to help boost the economy via a cause marketing standard; the wristband.'Indivisible' wristbands are $5 at 6,800 company-operated stores in the United States.All the money goes to the Opportunity Finance Network, an umbrella group of 180 Community Development Financial Institutions, which specialize in making loans to small businesses. Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-73358245954350451362012-01-06T22:15:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:16:56.341-08:00What Is The Average Bounce Rate?Many customers and people have asked me these questions before: “What is the average bounce rate of websites”? “Is my bounce rate good or bad”? In fact, I don’t really know what is the exact answer to the first question. First of all it really depends on what type of websites you have and the industry you are in. Also, where they are coming from and also what source or keywords they found Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-25752840485225674672012-01-06T21:30:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:16:56.341-08:00Bring Outsourcing Back HomeWhy waste time on something that you are not good at? Outsourcing to many companies and executives definitely looks like a good idea. Outsourcing is a business practice where companies outsource/contract out selected or part of their business operations to other companies that specialise in those operations in order to lower cost and improve efficiency. Outsourcing can definitely help Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-30316550956713377192012-01-06T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.854-08:00Cause Marketing en EspañolLate last year Walgreens ran the paper icon campaign at the left benefiting its long-time partner the American Diabetes Association in English on one side and Spanish on the other.Walgreens is the giant drugstore/C-store chain with more than 8,000 locations coast-to-coast.Such efforts are old hat in Canada, which is officially bilingual. But I can’t remember seeing any other paper icon efforts Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-5711240680841352372012-01-05T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.855-08:00More Cause Marketing Mashedup With Games in 2012One trend I expect to see more of in 2012 is the mashup of cause marketing and video/computer games.Certainly the market is huge.The Entertainment Software Association reports that 72 percent of American households play computer/video games. And it’s not just teens and preteens. The average game player is age 37. And while video/computer game players are more likely to be male than female, acrossAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-78146658894818727682012-01-04T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.855-08:00The Worst Cause Marketing of 2011Pathology, that is trying to figure out what went wrong, is both fun and entertaining. Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the CSI franchise on television among many other production credits, personally made $113 million! in 2011 thanks in part to our fascination with the pathology of crime.Even when it comes to cause marketing this fascination with the bad is strong. Many more people find the Cause Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-84346027338035296122012-01-03T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.855-08:00The Best Cause Marketing of 2011One of the things I love about cause marketing is also one of the things I love about my wife; it (like she) continues to surprise me. Here are 10 cause marketing efforts or campaigns, culled from more than 200 posts in 2011, that were cool or fun or smart or effective or innovative or surprising. And sometimes all of those adjectives at once!Here in date order of the original post are my top Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-7388829357270712932011-12-31T11:23:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:13:16.022-08:00New Year's PostHey everyone! Engine and Transmission World here, wishing you and your family a safe and happy New Year. Enjoy the ride!Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-27332067350620105822011-12-30T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.855-08:00Cause Marketing Your Bowl GameTwo of the 35 bowl games held this season… the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl and the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl… overtly use cause marketing to appeal to fans.In the United States the college football season basically ends the first week in December. The bowl games are a series of post-season contests featuring teams that don’t normally play one another. The Armed Forces Bowl, which airs at noonAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-14531281208748657962011-12-29T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.855-08:00Seven Simple Steps Cause Marketers Should Take Before the End of the YearThe end of the year is fast approaching and with it your final opportunity to improve yourself as a cause marketer. Here are seven simple-steps you could do in the next 30 minutes to improve your cause marketing career before year end.Make an Appointment for Early 2012 with Your Opposite Number at the Charity or Sponsor. Finish reading this list then call your partner at the cause or sponsor you Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-39150182424266401792011-12-28T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.856-08:00The Importance of Proximity in Cause Marketing RelationshipsAutoZone, the car parts dealer with more than 4500 stores across the United States is headquartered in Memphis Tennessee. So too is St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Not surprisingly AutoZone is a cause marketing supporter of St. Jude. Fedex, another Memphis-based company sponsors the St. Jude Classic, a PGA Tour event held each year at the TPC Southwind golf course, also in Memphis.It isn’tAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-61007106634858098812011-12-27T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.856-08:00Swearing For a CauseGot a potty mouth on Twitter combined with a yen to do good? You may want to sign up for Charity Swearbox.Here’s how it works: After you sign up every time you use a bad word on Twitter, Charity Swearbox takes note. At the end of the month they send you a notice along with a suggested donation. The default amount is $1 per word, but that’s a suggestion only.Charity Swearbox has whole host of Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-13875902474920874352011-12-23T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.856-08:00Merry Christmas From the Cause Marketing BlogThe long-standing Christmas Eve tradition at the cause marketing blog is to show the video of the prior year’s appearance of Darlene Love singing 'Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)' on the Late Show with David Letterman. You can see Love’s 2010 appearance above.Indeed, she's scheduled to perform on Letterman again tonight, Friday Dec. 23, 2011. Check your local listings for times.Love first Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-62283824267248302472011-12-22T12:23:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:13:16.022-08:00Advantages of Buying Used Auto Parts‘Used’ is an underrated category when it comes to automotive parts, and really the entire automotive industry in general. All the advertising is about new this, new that, and the culture of cars says to replace your old car with a new one if you can’t get a part for the right price. Presumably, this part is new.The truth is that used parts are often every bit as good as their new counterparts. Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-48221036812233295772011-12-22T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.856-08:00Adding a Seal Campaign to Your Cause Marketing Repertoire‘Seal’ campaigns defy easy categorization in cause marketing. They’ve been around forever. Witness the American Dental Association (ADA) Seal of Acceptance which dates from 1930.Strictly speaking seal campaigns are a kind of licensing deal. Generally they involve pre-set criteria and or testing.(The even older Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval was begun by the magazine of the same name in 1900 Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-52746519466261978332011-12-21T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.856-08:00The Business Value of Serving as a Drop-Off Point for Food or Christmas GiftsThere's just a few more donation days before Christmas for your local food bank... or Toys for Tots, or Sub for Santa, or the Salvation Army’s Giving Tree... and this ad that appeared in a Walgreen sales flyer in late November made me wonder about the business value to a retailer or firm of serving as a drop-off point.Here’s what I came up with:PublicityWalgreens got a little positive publicity Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-88511985902311915112011-12-20T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.857-08:00Christmas Cause Marketing from Lockheed MartinUnless you subscribe to some publication like the Army Times or Aviation Week and Space Technology, or you frequent the Yellow or Blue lines of the Washington D.C. Metro subway on the Virginia side of the Potomac, chances are you don’t often see much advertising from military contractors. But this is Christmas. And to hear Lockheed Martin tell it, sometimes Santa himself needs their C-130 Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-19276846299644928622011-12-19T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.857-08:001 Exemplary Cause Marketing Effort, 4 ActivationsLast Saturday found me Christmas shopping and in two very different retail settings I came across examples of St. Jude’s Thanks + Giving effort, which are integrated in an exemplary fashion.At the left is an ad from Entertainment Weekly magazine for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital which activates the Thanks + Giving effort with the call to action, “This Holiday, give thanks for the healthy Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-49672143096160646732011-12-16T18:15:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:18:35.945-08:00Corvette Z06 tops Motor Trend list of shortest-stopping vehiclesBy Jeremy KorzeniewskiAny modern performance car worth buying puts just as much emphasis on stopping as it does on going. After all, what's the point in being able to hit ludicrous speed if you can't manage to get it back down without heading fascia-first into an unmovable object?So, what's a good stopping distance? According to the crew at Motor Trend, 100 feet from 60 miles per hour is a Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-58353872371681582202011-12-16T14:47:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:19:52.823-08:00Three Ways to Update Your Funnel for the New B2B BuyerB2B Buyer behavior is undergoing an extraordinary sea change triggered by Internet technology. Tech marketing and sales teams haven't caught up. They still rely on a 112-year-old sales funnel model. IDC introduces a new Customer Creation Framework better suited for the way customers really buy.The Internet tsunami has radically changed B2B Buyer behavior. Before the Internet, the B2B buyer makingAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-80356714459765320572011-12-16T10:20:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:13:16.022-08:00Are Used Parts Trustworthy?There is a question that has arisen, and it’s quite understandable: are used parts trustworthy? That is, can they be used successfully as part of a car? Will they hold up as well as a newer counterpart?The short answer is yes.The long answer is yes, but that said it’s not a guarantee. Not all parts are equal, and depending on where you get the part from there’s a chance that it hasn’t been testedAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-2773689929634749742011-12-16T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.857-08:00Making Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Cause Marketing YearAs a holiday, Christmas is surprisingly challenging to cause market around, but a local homebuilder has the bones of a good campaign based on a gingerbread house-building contest that could be duplicated almost anywhere.Cause marketing is commonly linked to holidays. I’ve even argued in this space that the pink ribbon campaigns offer retailers, in effect, an extra selling season.But with some Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-41881380936428717662011-12-15T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.857-08:00Stealing Your Competitor's Cause Marketing ApproachIf imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then TOMS Shoes must be beaming with pride.Skechers a brand of shoes that occupies the vast middle range of pricing and quality offers a line called, I kid you not, BOBS, which promises to give a new pair of shoes to a needy child when you buy a Shoe Carnival gift card valued at $25 or more through Dec. 24.TOMS, of course, did more than anyone to Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-60209924824848794642011-12-14T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.857-08:00Cause Marketing from Kathy IrelandKathy Ireland is raising money for Jewelers For Children through the sales of her eponymous jewelry line at Fred Meyer Jewelers, and I want to help this ageless paramour from my youth.If only I knew what Jewelers for Children was.Ronald McDonald House Charities helps support Ronald McDonald Houses, which are homes away from homes for families who have children in hospitals. The Dave Thomas Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-48904294274859833722011-12-13T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.857-08:00Using Bounceback Offers in Paper Icon CampaignsA lot of retail establishments do paper icon campaigns, but relatively few seem to have embraced the bounceback offer. That’s why I was glad to see the bounceback coupon at the left from Denny’s.Right now Denny’s, a chain with more than 1,500 restaurants across the United States, is selling and displaying paper icons benefiting Toys for Tots, the toy giveaway charity. When you buy the paper icon Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-20148027220731908802011-12-12T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.858-08:00The American Red Cross Deserves Better Cause Marketing Creative Than ThisAt Causemarketing.biz I often review elements of cause marketing campaigns but I generally shy away from reviewing creative.That's because I don’t have a hardcore agency creative background. So it’s hard to trot out those kind of credentials, as in, ‘Back when I was at Crispin + Porter, Alex Bogusky used to say it was OK to try something different so long as it didn’t look like a mistake.’*With Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-76292725577574433982011-12-09T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.858-08:00How You Self-Educate Will Determine Your Success as a Cause MarketerHow do you, my fellow cause marketers, keep learning?How you answer the question of self-education determines things like: how successful your cause marketing campaigns are, indeed, how successful you are; your income and your lifespan. Researchers have even shown a correlation between happiness and education.It’s almost axiomatic that more you know the more you want to know... and as Socrates Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-3108957018873249332011-12-08T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.858-08:00Cause Marketers, Be Purposeful in Your Use of QR CodesI’ve been pounding the table for cause marketers to use QR codes now for about a year now, but too often, a new report finds, we’re using them to direct traffic to our website or Facebook page.Instead, customers expect the codes to take them to content that’s pertinent to the print piece they just scanned. Taking them to the front page of a website is a missed opportunity, says a report from Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-50052104643236334092011-12-07T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.858-08:00Does the End of White Coke Cans Mean the End of Cause Marketing on Packaging? Um...No.The cause marketing world is all a-Twitter with the news that Coke is retracting its first-ever mostly-white cans meant to call attention to the plight of ursas maritimus. (Collector alert!) Apparently, too many consumers took the special packaging of polar bears gamboling across the tundra for Diet Coke, which, in fact, comes in silver cans.I don’t have the energy to assign blame, ask if Coke Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-42198284620751514812011-12-06T14:46:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:13:16.022-08:00Why to Buy Used PartsYou may have heard some financial advice at one point in your life, and it would have gone something like this: buy used cars. Used vehicles are done with their devaluation, and they’re often every bit as good and as useful as the new thing. Don’t buy into the hype that you need some kind of a brand new vehicle to make you happy.That’s good advice. It’s true. Cars do most of their devaluing Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-56675040893354372162011-12-06T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.858-08:00To Take a Page from Kohl's Cause Marketing Success, Start With IKEALast week I confessed my man-crush on Kohl’s and their remarkable cause marketing efforts using stuffed animals, books, CDs and toys: Since the year 2000, Kohl’s has generated $180 million for kids’ causes.But Kohl’s has more than 1100 stores in 49 states. Could Kohl’s approach scale down to a business with just 1-2 storefronts?My answer is an equivocation. Kohl’s has done deals with whoever ownsAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-89559359541738087622011-12-05T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.859-08:00Where's the Social Media in this Youth Targeted Cause Marketing Effort?The direct sales business… think Amway, Avon, and Shaklee… has a demographics problem, namely attracting the next generation of sales reps. Avon has addressed the challenge by launching Mark, which targets 18-30 year olds with bright, fun, less expensive products than Avon’s mainstream line and sold by youthful reps using a heavy dose of social media.Mark has proven to be a good extension for Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-55604091699406245592011-12-02T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.859-08:00Co-Sponsorship and Cause MarketingAll cause marketing is a form of co-branding. But one kind of co-branding is far less common in cause marketing than in sports sponsorship, namely the kind of co-sponsorship you see at the left in this page from a Shopko sales flyer.The sports folks have long been very good at mashing up sponsors.The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, for example, could be sponsored by Ford. The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl could Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-87847742029728065342011-12-01T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.859-08:00Add a BOGO to This Cause Marketing PromotionYesterday Tempur-Pedic, which sells mattresses, ended a month-long promotion in support of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. When you took a test-rest on one of their mattresses at participating retailers, and then activated online a validation code, a $10 donation was made to the cause, up to a $100,000 maximum.Pancreatic cancer is among the deadliest. In 2010 43,000 people in the United Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-55070236851168004852011-11-30T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.859-08:00Christmas Cause Marketing on TV I started my cause marketing career back when gasoline cost about $1.15 a gallon, the median price of a house was a little more than $80,000 and a 30-second Super Bowl ad cost ‘just’ $850,000. And yet cheap as prices were back in 1992 do you think any sponsor would spring for even one national cause marketing ad on TV?The answer is a resounding ‘no!’Yet right now there’s goodly number of Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-52437839066820921612011-11-29T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.860-08:00Getting the Nose of Your Cause Marketing Under the TentThe last installment of the Dynamics of Cause Engagement study released yesterday found that social media cause promoters aren’t the ‘slacktivists’ that they’re often portrayed to be.The study was conducted for the Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown University and sponsored by Ogilvy Public Relations.Instead, the study finds, people who engage with causes via social media are:Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-32001673253139212212011-11-28T11:20:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:13:16.023-08:00Holidays Are HereIt’s that time of the year again. That time when the car companies are going to start advertising their cars with red ribbons and bows and all kinds of neat little fixings. Of course, they don’t like the fine print they have to put on the ads as well, but. It’s not a perfect world.As we have for the past 24 years, we will continue to provide you with an alternative. Who says a used engine isn’t aAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-80538894971913116262011-11-28T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.860-08:00Using Cause Marketing to Better Keep Customers for LifeWhen I saw the cause marketing ad at the left in my local newspaper, my first reaction was, frankly, uncharitable. I thought: my golly hearing aid retailers must have gaudy profit margins! Those uncharitable feelings aside, I think there’s some lessons for using cause marketing to better keep customers for life.Here’s the offer. When you buy your first hearing aid(s) from My Hearing Centers, the Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-68512747104238741022011-11-24T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.860-08:00Happy Thanksgiving Cause MarketersToday is Thanksgiving in the United States, a holiday when we watch parades and American football before eating an enormous feast of turkey, ‘stuffing,’ mashed potatoes and gravy, and then chase it down with slabs of pumpkin pie with whipped cream.Just yesterday I read how the original feast was perhaps 600 calories. Nowadays... the dietary nannies tell us... the Thanksgiving meal might tip the Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-14171538276224885062011-11-23T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.860-08:00“It Ain’t Bragging If You Can Back It Up”Kohl’s the Milwaukee-based department store with about 1130 stores in 49 states has raised $180 million for kids’ education and health through its cause marketing efforts, and with this ad in their weekly flyer they’re bragging a little.That’s not an unrivaled amount of money for a company to generate via product sales cause marketing: VIVA GLAM is now north of $225 million in funding for HIV/Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-51676591951995888262011-11-22T13:32:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:13:16.023-08:00Services Offered by Engine and Transmission WorldEngine and Transmission World is different from many standard parts of the automotive industry. It well and truly is. It’s different because it gives people a way to keep getting use out of their vehicles even after the textbook wisdom says to get rid of it and let it pass on.Engine and Transmission World is not in the business of rebuilding those parts. Rather, it is in the business of offering Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-81355578031258751772011-11-22T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.860-08:00Cause Marketing to Santa BabiesHuggies is back with another too cute version of their flagship brand of disposable diapers, this time based around Father Christmas. When you buy Huggies limited-edition ‘jeans’ or Santa diapers or baby wipes, Kimberly-Clark will donate as many as 21 million diapers to causes in the United States and Canada on the basis of one diaper per specially-marked package of diapers sold.Certain social Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-31964670756748083132011-11-21T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.861-08:00Cause Marketing In the ZeitgeistJay-Z, rapper, impresario, and would-be member of the Forbes 400 is in the news because his Rocawear line of clothing sold a T-shirt that co-opts the attention given to Occupy Wall Street, but fails to share with OWS any proceeds from sales.Sacrebleu! Imagine the cheek of the fellow who “…has the political sensibility of a hood rat …To attempt to profit off of the first important social moment ofAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-39833223882403925162011-11-18T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.861-08:00Helping More Causes Benefit from Crowd-Sourced Cause MarketingI’m always a little bit chary of the many contests that offer a donation to charities that get the most votes, or Likes, or pageviews, or Tweets. Pepsi Refresh and American Express Members Project are prominent, but hardly the only examples of these kinds of Crowd-Sourced Cause Marketing promotions.Maxwell House, a coffee brand from Kraft, does its own version of this Crowd-Sourced Cause Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-84619865098635928002011-11-17T14:13:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:19:52.823-08:00Symptoms of a Sick Sales FunnelCan you believe that the sales funnel is 112 years old? Hmmm. Seems like a lot has happened since then. No wonder the ole’ funnel is showing signs of wear. IDC research shows that the time it takes for tech companies to create a B2B customer has increased by 15% in the past year. Is it time for a fresh approach?The sales funnel first appears in a 1925 book by Edward K. Strong called The Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-63806004339792524822011-11-17T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.861-08:00Cause Marketing for Veteran's Causes Shows Support for Military VetsIn the lead-up to Veteran’s Day, held in the U.S. last Friday Nov. 11, 2011, Time magazine ran a cover package that concluded that the Americans and military veterans have never been further apart culturally.Why? Well, the warrior culture and mainstream American culture don’t intersect much, the thinking goes. Many American political leaders have never served, in steep contrast to, say, the Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-17321028779087179212011-11-16T13:41:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:13:16.023-08:00The Advantage of Buying Parts at Engine and Transmission WorldEngine and Transmission World is a very different place compared to most others when it comes to buying parts.We don’t mean to slam the competition when we say that they’re junkyards. But the fact remains that more often than not, it’s recommended that you go to a junkyard to get the replacement parts that you need for your car.They’ll charge you similar prices for it, of course, but that doesn’tAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-69781053004461294792011-11-16T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.861-08:00Monetizing Your Cause’s ArchivesSome causes have been around long enough that they have a mountainous inventory of really great communications items that could potentially be monetized. But how?The challenge is more common than you might think. The Muscular Dystrophy Association is sitting on hundreds of hours of variety-show entertainment performed on its annual telethon since 1966. Assuming it owns clear rights to those Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-79356123149778665822011-11-15T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.861-08:00Adding QR Codes to Chili's Create-A-Pepper Effort Gives Campaign Added DimensionsIf you add a QR-code to a paper icon campaign, just how many code scans can you expect?Chili’s, the restaurant chain, added a QR code to its Create-A-Pepper paper icon which engendered 291,000 scans in September 2011. As of this writing, the Create-A-Pepper campaign generated $3,013,735 in donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital so far in 2011.It’s tempting to conclude that almost 10 Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-40902273277047947492011-11-14T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.861-08:00Cause Marketing from Dillard's That Doesn't Quite FitDillard’s, the department store chain, has a cause marketing effort benefiting Feeding America that hits all the high points, until… cue the record scratch sound-effect… it doesn’t.So what is Dillard’s doing right? It’s a pretty good list.First off Dillard’s choose a venerable cause marketing partner, Feeding America, which has an accomplished record in cause marketing and a vitally important Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-54290010465323290722011-11-11T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.862-08:00Join the Cause Marketing Blog Google Newsgroup, Get a Tool You Can Use TodayKind Readers:William F. from Tampa, Florida is the latest to join the Cause Marketing Google Newsgroup.It couldn’t be easier to subscribe. Simply send me your name and your email address to aldenkeene at gmail dot com.When you subscribe each new post comes directly to your email, usually every business day.And like William, when you subscribe I’ll also send you a PDF copy of the "Five Flavors of Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-18448964706209304532011-11-10T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.862-08:00Is it Time for Share Our Strength to Rebrand?On the heels of yesterday's post about rebranding the two big label campaigns benefiting education, in today's post I show how when one anti-hunger charity rebranded itself, it doubled in size, while another anti-hunger charity is also growing, if less impressively, under its old branding.The nation’s largest anti-hunger charity, Feeding America, has been knocking it out of the park in terms of Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-15709010957178475422011-11-09T14:16:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:13:16.024-08:00Why to Buy Parts From Engine and Transmission WorldEngine and Transmission World started small. It was first opened in 1987, in Milwaukee, and the idea was to give people a better option between going for a new car and going to some junkyard where you’d have to haggle with the keeper to get a part at a decent price that may or may not work.We’ve proven to be a better option. We’ve proven to be such a good option that we’ve expanded our business. Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-60396924806229074862011-11-09T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.862-08:00Time for Labels and Boxtops for Education to Rebrand for Growth?For some time now the two big prominent label collection efforts, General Mills Boxtops for Education and the much more senior and yet smaller Label’s for Education... founded by Campbell’s... have opened their respective campaigns to non-competing brands. It’s the classic win-win.In so doing, they broaden their exposure and increase the amount of possible funds raised for schools. I suspect Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-34980521245681201052011-11-08T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.862-08:00What if Denny’s Threw a Cause Marketing Fundraiser and Everyone Showed Up?Denny’s, the restaurant chain with about 1550 outlets across the country, wants your nonprofit to hold its fundraiser at one of their restaurants. When you book an event there, Denny’s will donate “10% of pre-tax sales generated by your group” back to your cause, church, team, school, club, advocacy group or fraternity/sorority.This is familiar ground trod by plenty of restaurants, both chains Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-26466583634657571512011-11-07T06:10:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:19:52.824-08:00Building the Big Tech Brand: Dell and XeroxThe last two years have been hard times for tech marketers: there has been major pressure to transform execution, coupled with a significant reduction in the rate of budget growth. This is truly the "We are being asked to do more, with less" situation that marketers casually complain about. But this time, it is reality.Despite the headwinds, I have been very impressed with the major brand Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-52382387579932429232011-11-07T04:00:00.000-08:002012-01-25T06:11:00.862-08:00Five Pieces of Unsolicited Cause Marketing Advice to Actor Hugh JackmanVersatile action star and Broadway song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman has started a new ‘all-benefits company’ that he explicitly says was inspired by Newman’s Own.Here’s five bits of entirely unsolicited cause marketing advice to Mr. Jackman from yours truly.1. Put Your Face On the Packaging. I don’t know what Laughing Man means and probably most of your potential customers don’t either. Speaking Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-50624689381472763532011-11-04T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.862-08:00Head Scratching Cause MarketingAlmost two weeks ago I was in a local two-store pizza chain and my kids found the handcard at the left for me.But what they found wasn’t immediately clear to me.At first glance, I thought it might be a way to drive cause marketing to smaller retail establishments, something I’ve called for in the past.A second glance made me think it might be a cause marketing powered inducement for customers to Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-12140538394805505882011-11-03T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.863-08:00The Winter Doesn't Mean the End to Outdoor Fundraising EventsThe snow has already begun to fly here in the northern hemisphere, so that means all those outdoor charity walks, runs, races, golf tournaments and such are done everywhere except in the sunbelt until Spring 2012, right?Not so fast, Jack Frost.In fact, plenty of opportunities remain for outdoor events during the cold winter months. You just need to think outside the Summer equinox box.For Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-75607115151513993732011-11-02T13:49:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:13:16.024-08:00Looking for automotive parts?Need a car part but want to make sure you are getting the best deal, service, and warranty while doing so? We understand. In fact, we are so understanding about your needs that we have built a business custom tailored around them. At Engine and Transmission World, our staff provides you with the car parts that you need all at a great price. In addition, you can expect the highest quality of Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-49924004233214335272011-11-02T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.863-08:00"Help the World's Women and Girls." Website Tells You How Many Slaves You EmployI am reading the book ‘Half the Sky’ right now, a powerful and deeply affecting book about the plight of women and girls in the developing world by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book addresses four major threats to being female in the developing world; high maternal mortality, human trafficking, which can be understood in most cases as slavery; sexual violence; and mundane daily Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-343204277003080882011-11-01T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.863-08:00Companies that Rank High in CSR Also Known for Cause MarketingOn October 18 2011 I wrote a post about the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship 2011 CSR Index and how by my reckoning six of the top ten and 33 of the 50 companies listed did at least some cause marketing. A few days later reader Jessica Marlo left the following comment."It really bothers me that you can't share this information with the rest of us! What companies make up the the "Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-35819594172878087322011-10-31T14:21:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:13:16.024-08:00What Does the Transmission Do?Any given machine has to have at least two separate parts. It has to have an engine, or something that generates power for the machine to use. It also has to have something to transmit that power to the other parts.In mechanical terms, that’s what the transmission does. Not only does it transmit the power of the engine, but it also controls how much of that power is available on tap. The Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-14302407957444711912011-10-31T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.863-08:00Making Cause Marketing More SystemicCoca-Cola has been drawing neutral to positive reviews for its white can promotion benefiting the World Wildlife Fund. Mark me down as neutral to negative, because I don’t think it goes quite fair enough.Here’s why: Amory Lovins, the slightly heterodox environmental scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute has a new book out called “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-54211909987192817042011-10-28T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.863-08:00The World Series of Cause MarketingThe winner of the 2011 World Series will be determined tonight at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. But four causes, recognized during the first four games of the Series, have already won the big spotlight that the Fall Classic brings. Those causes are: Welcome Back Veterans; the Roberto Clemente Award; Boys and Girls Clubs of America; and Stand Up to Cancer.Each was separately highlighted during the Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-38465795871623688362011-10-27T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.864-08:00Long-Term, Committed Monogamy in Cause MarketingSome sponsors do so much volume and have such great visibility and recognition that they almost have the pick of charities to partner with. So, like actor George Clooney, some sponsors have been seen with a lot of different pretty faces over the years.Toys R Us has had cause marketing relationships with at least 4 charities in the last 20 years and is currently with Toys for Tots.In the last yearAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-23172820322229354022011-10-26T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.864-08:00Nature Valley Puts You In the National ParksThe thing you never understand about the Grand Canyon, until you actually go there, is that no photo does it justice. It’s so deep and so wide that the limited field of view provided by still or video cameras comes up seriously wanting. And no photo, by itself, is immersive enough either.Now Nature Valley granola bars, a General Mills brand, is trying to do justice to the Grand Canyon, Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-10933076962860011372011-10-25T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.864-08:00Trick or Treat for UNICEF Embraces New Giving TechFor three generations… since 1950… the United States Fund for UNICEF has sponsored Trick or Treat for UNICEF a door-to-door fundraiser conducted by children and meant to take place on or around Halloween, October 31.In 60 years Trick or Treat for UNICEF has raised $164 million, an average of $2.7 million a year. Not bad!But the problem, if you can call it that, is that the campaign has Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-2259514979415870802011-10-24T14:30:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:13:16.024-08:00Finding the Right Part for Your CarEngine and Transmission World wouldn’t be a very good world if they didn’t have a lot of engines or transmissions for you to check out.Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Since 1987, the shop has sold over 400,000 separate parts to people all over the place. And that means that they have a ton of parts available.Their main catalog is available right on the site, and you’re free Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-11939787314020951282011-10-24T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.864-08:00Subscribing to the Cause Marketing Blog is as Easy as Harry Potter's Accio SpellKind Readers:Gwen D. from the Northumberland region of the U.K. (home to Hogwarts!) is the latest to join the Cause Marketing Google Newsgroup.It’s super-easy to subscribe. Simply send me your name and your email address to aldenkeene at gmail dot com.Like the Accio spell on Harry Potter which brings desirable objects to you, when you subscribe each new post comes directly to your email, usually Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-62769505613486557332011-10-21T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.864-08:00Happy Birthday to the Cause Marketing Blog!Five years ago on Tuesday October 17 I posted for the first time on this blog. On Tuesday November 1, 2011 I’ll celebrate my 700th post.Since October 2010 I’ve posted, almost without exception, every business day. I compare it to writing a daily newspaper column, with all the attendant challenges of coming up with something new… or at least different… to say five days a week.Like Ernest HemingwayAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-13812757444761279652011-10-20T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.864-08:00Payless Gives Shoes 4 Kids; the Basic Black Pump of Cause MarketingThis holiday season Payless ShoeSource will donate $1.2 million worth of shoes free of charge to children in North America, and 11 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.Now in its fourth year the program… called Payless Gives Shoes 4 Kids… is accepting applications from nonprofits right now at Paylessgives.com.Having just finished Ross Shafer’s slender volume called ‘Grab More Market ShareAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-55373614814584593822011-10-19T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.865-08:00Cause for DessertIf you’re a restaurant, even in a quick-service category, it’s hard to imagine a transactional cause marketing campaign you could launch more easily or quickly than a dessert promotion. When a customer buys a slice of cake, pie, a dish of ice cream, or some other dessert you make a donation to your cause partner.In most cases you wouldn’t want to promote a salad or a main course. At a sit-down Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-49820161339693304432011-10-18T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.865-08:00Corporate Citizenship In a Time of Occupy Wall StreetBoston College Center for Corporate Citizenship released its annual CSR Index the other day even as Occupy Wall Street and its satellite efforts continue their protests that are, in part, anti-corporate.The top 10 were:Publix Super MarketsGoogleUPSKellogg’sAmazon.comBerkshire HathawayFedExCampbell SoupBaxter International3MBy my count I’ve seen cause marketing from six of the top 10 and 33 of theAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-40169936015357583082011-10-17T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.865-08:00Parting the Kimono (a little) on Cause Marketing ROII’m working a speech I’ll give next week on cause marketing and the meeting planners asked if I could share some actual ROI data.Such data isn’t impossible to discover. But it’s not at all common.You don’t have too think to hard about it to know why this is so. If a transactional cause marketing was based on sales, then it would be a matter of simple arithmetic for a competitor to figure out unitAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-15348436059201408572011-10-14T13:55:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:13:16.024-08:00Why to Buy Used Engines and TransmissionsEverything is about saving money, these days. Cars are about that too, even if most people don’t make the connection that they should be.With cars, more often than not, the thought is that it’s about spending money. The question is when are you supposed to spend. And typically, the expiration of the engine or the transmission is taken as a sign that it’s time to trade in and get a new set of Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-70036831395011311802011-10-13T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.865-08:00I Don’t Hate All the Cause Marketing I See. Honest.I looked back at my posts over the last few weeks and found little enthusiasm and a lot of criticism of the cause marketing efforts I’ve seen lately.I’m beginning to wonder if I’m like the drunk test performed on Steve Martin in the 1983 movie “The Man with Two Brains.” Martin’s character, who is in Germany, gets pulled over by the polizei and given a sobriety test that requires him to stretch Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-1646005197504072272011-10-12T07:29:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:19:52.824-08:00CMO's report universal lack of preparedness for key challengesIBM released the findings of their Global CMO study yesterday and one of the primary conclusions is that CMOs feel unprepared to address key challenges. The most surprising thing is how consistent the feeling is across regions and vertical industries. CMOs generally face the same issues and report very similar levels of "unpreparedness" in the face of them. Top challenges include: data explosion,Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-71750356961958920092011-10-12T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.865-08:00Should Breast Cancer Awareness Be About the Breast More Than the Disease?Should breast cancer awareness ever be more about the breast than it is the cancer?I wonder when I see ads like the one at the left by Estee Lauder.Over the last few years there’s been a general sexualizing of the disease that troubles me.Don’t get me wrong. Part of the early genius of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and her sister breast cancer charities was the recognition that breast cancer was Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-70368546022900935362011-10-11T06:51:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:19:52.824-08:00Spark by MarketoMarketo announced a new sub-brand called Spark targeted at the SMB market. It's a testament to how successfully Marketo has transitioned from SMB to the enterprise space that it has to go back and offer a new brand for what used to be its primary market. The demand for marketing automation at large enterprises is driving rapid growth for all marketing automation companies, and Marketo is no Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-15415600503152598622011-10-11T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.865-08:00Respecting Your Cause Marketing PartnerFrom Freschetta, the bake-at-home pizza brand found in your grocer’s freezer case, comes a pink ribbon cause marketing campaign that seems slightly ashamed of its esteemed non-profit partner.Here’s the campaign: when you buy pink-beribboned packages of Freschetta pizza products and Schwan Food Company, the brand's owner, will donate $1 up to $50,000 total to guess who?You almost have to guess Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-78139209388473472862011-10-11T00:07:00.001-07:002011-10-11T00:07:46.132-07:00AtriadesWelcome to Atriades.Blogspot.comAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-73391158451504636462011-10-10T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.865-08:00What Comes After ‘Pink Pledges’ in Cause Marketing?More pink ribbon cause marketing, this time from retailer Dress Barn.For every 'Lilac' plush toy animal sold for $6 through Dec. 31, 2011, Dress Barn will send “the entire net profit of at least $2.50 to support local and national breast cancer initiatives” at the American Cancer Society.”Lilac was featured on the inside front cover flap of the “Late Fall 2011” Dress Barn catalog.I much admire Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-20711908030330163872011-10-07T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.866-08:00The Importance of Proper Positioning for Charities in Today's EconomyDear Friends:What follows is an address I made yesterday to a nonprofit coalition. I spoke without Powerpoint, otherwise I just post the slides on Slideshare. What follows is the text of my speech about nonprofit positioning in a time of great need.Warm regards,PaulIf like me, you believe that charities (or, nonprofits, or causes) have a vital role to play in the American civil society then you Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-18668124569978807682011-10-06T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.866-08:00Advanced Placement Cause MarketingJ. Walter Thompson’s white paper, called 'Social Good,' has attracted a fair amount of attention, including (critical) mention in these pages.Most of the press has taken some variation on a theme of how consumers are increasingly critical of cause marketing, a conclusion I was critical of based on several loaded questions JWT asked in its survey. But buried farther down in Social Good survey was Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478263722501161489.post-19862211480123684172011-10-05T04:00:00.000-07:002012-01-25T06:11:00.866-08:00Integrated Cause Marketing with Starbucks and MSNBCLong-time readers know I’m a sap when it comes to integrated cause marketing campaigns that are activated across multiple media because I believe they’re more effective and because… having done of few of these campaigns myself… I know how much hard work they are.Here’s how this one works: When you buy a package of Starbucks branded Morning Joe coffee, “Starbucks with MSNBC will donate to the Adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213811174512373251noreply@blogger.com