Beth Ward doesn’t like to run. So she walked. She walked 86 kilometres over the span of two days, along sidewalks and city streets. She walked for her sister’s friend, for one of her co-workers, and for all the people in her life who have been floored by cancer.
Ward walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and through the Marina District of San Francisco. She walked through Golden Gate Park and down to Daly City. As people ran by, Ward continued to walk.
She has taken part in several smaller fundraising events, but last July marked the first time she participated in the annual Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Though she had trained for the event, by the end of the first day she was exhausted.
Instead of staying in a hotel, Ward opted to camp outside for the night, and before turning in headed to one of the temporary showers set up onsite.
Much to her delight and surprise, she found Avon shampoo, conditioner, body wash and lotion in each stall.
“It was almost better than walking into a hotel and seeing all these great toiletries right there for use and it was amazing, and all I could think is I’m so grateful to Avon for all of the products they provided,” says Ward, a senior vice-president and partner of central region recruiting for marketing and communications firm Fleishman Hillard.
In addition to stocking shower stalls, Avon reps passed out hand sanitizer and sunscreen at every rest stop.
“I could not make it through this day if it weren’t for these little items I found along the way, and that’s all you could think about,” says Ward, who was so impressed by Avon’s sponsorship efforts that she wrote about it on the Word of Mouth section of Fleishman Hillard’s blog, only days after the walk.
“I usually don’t buy [Avon],” she wrote. “Yes, I am a cheapskate. I’m a product of an Irish father whose parents’ spending habits were shaped by the Great Depression. If you don’t need it, you can’t spend money on it.
“So how does a brand break through to me, a self-proclaimed tightwad, without couponing or deep discounting? And beyond winning my dollars, how do I convince others to purchase as well? One possible tactic: cause-related marketing combined with free sampling.”
While other sponsors handed out pamphlets during the two-day event, Avon stood out in Ward’s mind “because the things I needed the most and were the most comforting during the stressful parts of the walk were provided by them,” says Ward.
Avon’s sponsorship of the Walk for Breast Cancer and its onsite activations is one example of how companies are using cause-related marketing to connect with women.
While the business case for crafting marketing messages to women is well established—their purchasing power and decision-making authority is massive—it makes sense to marry the two.
Simply put: women want to make the world a better place, says Emily Spensieri, president of Female Engineered Marketing (FEM), a Toronto-based agency that specializes in marketing to women.
Women are optimistic about their growing influence and believe they will help drive peace and economic prosperity, according to a 2008 global survey conducted by the Boston Consulting Group and based on responses from more than 12,000 women in more than 40 countries. When asked about their “dream day,” nearly half the respondents included a charity or philanthropy in their “ideal life.”
“It’s more than just feeling good about the brand… [as a marketer] if you’re not giving back to some kind of cause at this point you’ve missed the boat,” says Spensieri. “Really what you need to be doing is helping your female audience feel better about itself.”
Moms are particularly eager to give back to their community as a way of instilling certain values in their children, she says.
By all measures, they lead the way as the demographic most amenable to cause marketing, according to the 2010 Cone Cause Evolution Study conducted by Cone Inc., a Boston-based communications agency. The study found that 95% of moms find cause-marketing acceptable (versus an 88% average) and 92% want to buy a product supporting a cause (compared to an 81% average).
But a pink ribbon on a package is no longer enough to motivate women to buy from a company associated with a cause. The association must deliver multiple means of engagement.
“You want to have an integrated program and be transparent—explain what you’re going to do, what your goals are and what the impact of the consumer engagement will be,” says David Hessekiel, president of Cause Marketing Forum, a New York-based company that educates non-profits and businesses on “doing well by doing good” together.
While the concept of aligning a brand to a cause or non-profit organization isn’t necessarily new (American Express is said to have coined the term “cause marketing” in 1983 to describe a fundraising campaign it launched to restore the Statue of Liberty), more and more, companies are moving beyond the traditional button and badges campaign to really engage women. For example, Unilever created its own cause with the Dove Self-Esteem Fund as part of its “Campaign for Real Beauty.” Though the program is seven years old now, Unilever has kept it fresh on multiple fronts with sleepover events, a play, a documentary and an interactive romantic comedy, all in the name of helping women redefine what it means to be beautiful. (See sidebar on page 22.)
Initially, most marketers thought of cause-marketing as nothing more than a transactional arrangement, says Hessekiel. Like in the case of American Express.
The credit card company donated one penny from every transaction toward the Statue of Liberty effort, and $1 for every new card issued. Over a four-month period, US$1.75 million was raised for restoration, new users grew by 17% and transaction activity jumped 28%.
But given the sheer number of marketing channels and media choices today, cause-marketing (like any other form of marketing) had to evolve with the times.
“It is no longer a novel thing to do, it’s a must-do in terms of being part of your communications,” says Hessekiel. “The bar has been raised in terms of how to stand out when there are many of these campaigns in the marketplace.”
For Unilever’s Becel margarine brand, standing out means educating Canadian women about heart disease through a variety of marketing activities that include an annual fashion show, on-pack promotions, a movie and most recently as the founding sponsor of the “Heart Truth” campaign, which provides free cholesterol testing. Unilever conducts consumer research before and after each execution to gauge how the efforts are resonating with female consumers, says Anne Walsh, the company’s director of every day nourishment. In February (Heart Health Month in Canada), Becel hosted testing clinics administered by registered nurses at malls across the country. Prior to this year’s campaign, 70% of Canadians did not know their cholestrol number, and since the launch, there has been a 5% increase in the number of Canadians planning to get tested, says Walsh. The event was born from research conducted by Leger Marketing on behalf of Unilever in December that found 84% of Canadian women say it’s important their loved ones have their cholesterol tested, yet one in three say they have not been tested themselves.
“What it suggests is that women caretakers put much more emphasis on the health of their loved ones than themselves,” says Walsh. “That’s important in terms of targeting women, to really make a difference to them, because they will put the needs of others before themselves.”
According to a Harris/Decima study conducted in August 2010 on behalf of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, 63% of women who have heard of the campaign have or are likely to make changes to their lifestyle as a result.
While Unilever wouldn’t say if the campaign has helped boost sales, the Heart and Stoke Foundation issued a statement saying “we’ve seen significant growth in awareness since the Heart and Stroke Foundation launched the campaign in February 2008.”
While it makes sense to align a healthy alternative product like Becel with a health charity like the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Hessekiel says a common mistake marketers make is partnering with the wrong cause. Because cause marketing is still driven by the need to increase sales, some marketers look to partner with the cause of the moment, rather than aligning with a non-profit that makes sense for the brand.
In 2010, fast food restaurant chain KFC partnered with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure—one of the most widely known breast cancer organizations in the U.S.—for a program called “Buckets for the Cure,” donating 50 cents for every “pink” bucket of chicken sold. Then, one week after launching the campaign, KFC introduced the Double Down sandwich (two slabs of fried chicken, bacon, cheese and sauce) even though obesity is a risk factor for breast cancer. The move drew criticism from customers and the breast cancer community. “They are raising money for women’s health by selling a product that’s bad for your health… it’s hypocrisy,” Barbara Brenner, executive director of Breast Cancer Action told ABC News.
A cause-marketing campaign that is insincere, opportunistic or otherwise ill-intentioned can do more harm than good, which is why marketers need to do their homework, says Hessekiel.
Post Food’s Shredded Wheat cereal became a contributing sponsor of the “Heart Truth” campaign after focus group testing and PMB measurements uncovered which causes were important to the brand’s female consumers, says Jennifer Dumoulin, director of marketing for Post Food.
And by speaking to consumers, the company learned that a majority of them were purchasing its products for health-related issues such as high cholesterol or hypertension, she says.
“A great step to help reduce the risk of heart disease is eating right,” says Dumoulin, noting Shredded Wheat’s nutrition cred.
The cereal brand supported the national effort with an on-pack promotion and contest that launched in January. Those who purchased a specially marked box of Shredded Wheat received a PIN code to use at the contest microsite to receive a Red Dress pin—the official symbol of the Heart Truth campaign.
Consumers could also enter to win a custom-designed red dress by Canadian designer David Dixon and a trip for two to the 2011 Heart Truth Fashion Show during Toronto’s LG Fashion Week last month. The program was promoted on 400,000 boxes across Canada and according to Dumoulin, resulted in a 1.8% pin-redemption rate and an 8.7% contest-entry redemption rate—a good indication of a successful program, she says.
These days, a company shouldn’t have a problem finding a cause it has logical ties to considering the number of options out there, says Hessekiel.
“It makes your communications challenge much smaller if people are not scratching their heads going, ‘Why in the world are you supporting X?’ ” he says. “It could be about what they produce, about who their target is, it could be something about their legacy and history, or their brand image.”
Shelley Simmons, director of brand communications and values for the Body Shop, says supporting social and environmental issues is simply part of the brand’s DNA. The Body Shop founder and human rights activist Anita Roddick had a strong personal sense of social responsibility, aligning the cosmetic franchise with non-profit organizations including Greenpeace and Amnesty International.
Before her sudden passing in 2007, Roddick had taken a particular interest in helping victims of sex trafficking, says Simmons. So to honour Roddick’s memory, the Body Shop embarked on its global “Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People” campaign in 2009. The brand spent 18 months researching the issue before landing on charity partner ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) International.
“It was very important for us, if we’re launching this campaign internationally, that we have some consistency and authority,” she says. “But we also know we’re working with people on the ground who are really making a difference at a local market level.
“For us, our partners are very important because we see ourselves as the communications platform, so what we can bring to the table is the fact we have stores in shopping malls and street locations across the country and we have the marketing expertise to be able to bring challenging issues to the consumer in a way that does engage and creates conversation.”
In its first year, the campaign was designed to raise awareness, before taking it one step further and asking consumers to sign a petition. It was important consumers understood the issue first, says Simmons.
“It’s a challenging issue. It’s something most people think only might happen somewhere else in the world… Not on their doorstep.”
To date, the Body Shop has collected more than 5 million signatures globally, and will present them to the United Nations later this year. The beauty retailer also donates partial proceeds from sales of its Bag For Life canvas tote, and the Soft Hands Kind Hearts hand cream (created last year specifically for the global campaign), which has helped raise $3.5 million globally.
The Body Shop doesn’t relate campaign activities to sales increases because it’s more than a one-off initiative—it’s who they are as a brand, says Simmons.
“For us, we know that the loyalty that we’ve gained from our customers over the last 35 years has been because they know they can get great products from us, but they have that added experience of being able to make a difference in the world.”
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