Friday, January 29, 2010

Case study: Marketing with a Cause


Each year, the Cause Marketing Forum recognizes one business and one non profit organization for their leadership and outstanding efforts in the pursuit of doing well by doing good. For the year 2009,the winner for the Best Health Campaign was Subway, which raised more than $1.5 million in 2008. How? Subway integrated the American Heart Association AHA Start! logo and messages into all its communications materials about healthy eating and introduced the Fresh Fit Meal for kids.

“In this new era of social responsibility, what you don't do can cost you. "Cause marketing" is now the norm, and customers who visit your website and see your advertising want to know that you share their desire to make the world a better place by supporting an important cause.If your business or brand doesn't stand for a cause, consumers may turn to your competitors.- www.entrepreneur.com”
Once you choose your cause, marketing it is equally important as well. Success in cause marketing often means motivating an audience to take action, such as making a donation or participating in an event. Using a dedicated marketing campaign, you can reach and persuade the target group while also raising awareness for your business and its commitment to social responsibility. A growing number of businesses and nonprofits have discovered that online technology can “turbo-charge” their cause-related marketing partnerships

They can greatly expand their reach and create a community via  personalized websites and  sending solicitation emails to friends and family.

A great example of this is Trip Advisor. As per the Cause Marketing Forum, the Best Use of Social Media campaign went to Trip Advisor  which invited consumers to vote on how it should allocate a $1 million donation between  previously selected five nonprofits. Using social media, TripAdvisor generated more than 1 million votes, 1.4 million views of a video on YouTube and numerous posts, resulting in  an improved impression of TripAdvisor by 56 percent of members surveyed. The biggest donation went to Doctors Without Borders $392,000 as voted by the consumers.

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