I recently read the NPR article ‘Selfish’ Giving: Does It Count If You Get In Return? The article criticizes the practice of cause marketing – which is defined as the integration of social and environmental issues in a corporation’s brand. Cause marketing fuses our business needs with our societal needs.
By combining our desire to give and our desire to have products, cause marketing makes perfect sense (and dollars). I love water bottles. I love pink. I don’t need another water bottle. But if I buy this pink one, I can help find a cure for breast cancer. Breast cancer is bad. Guilt of a frivolous purchase mitigated.
Let’s take a look at the evolution of cause marketing with the help of Cone Communications, a marketing firm in Boston. Cone created the Past. Present. Future. report commemorating the 25th Anniversary of Cause Marketing.
According to Cone, cause marketing began with the American Express Statute of Liberty Restoration Project in 1983. Cause marketing can be seen today with campaigns such as Product(red) and Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.
Cone found that 85% of Americans have a positive image of companies that support causes. So is cause marketing really this awful and selfish thing as the NPR article suggests? Does the motive behind the donation really matter as long as someone benefits by my purchase? What do you think?
To learn more about the history and evolution of cause marketing, please see this article published on Living the Path, our knowledge community.
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