Integrated Cause Marketing with Starbucks and MSNBC

Long-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 DonorsChoose.org project of your choice.” You redeem it online at DonorsChoose.org using the code from the package of Morning Joe coffee.

The ‘with MSNBC’ line, I suspect, means that MSNBC is donating airtime to the promotion rather than cash.

Morning Joe is the name of the MSNBC morning talk show hosted by former member of (U.S) Congress from Florida, Joe Scarborough, along ‘with’ Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist.

Starbucks has been a sponsor... of one flavor or another… of Morning Joe since June 2009, drawing scrutiny and criticism from media watchdogs and others. The Starbucks logo is embedded into the Morning Joe set and graphics.

Previously bags of Starbucks’ Morning Joe coffee were available exclusively at Target and Starbucks locations. With this promotion Morning Joe coffee is available at grocers nationwide. (One wonders how the end of Target’s exclusivity agreement played out.)

I’ve already tipped my hand about my admiration for this campaign. But I think it could be improved. Scarborough is a Republican who prides himself as a moderate. Back in August 2011, the billionaire CEO of Starbucks, Howard Shultz, pledge to stop making campaign donations to incumbent politicians until and unless there was a plan from Congress to control the nation’s debt.

By September 2011 Shultz had induced a 100 other CEOs to sign his pledge and they took out a full-page ad in the New York Times declaring their intentions:

“First, to withhold political campaign contributions until a transparent, comprehensive, bipartisan debt-and-deficit package is reached that honestly, and fairly, sets America on a path to long-term financial health and security. Second, to do all we can to break the cycle of economic uncertainty that grips our country by committing to accelerate investment in jobs and hiring.”

In other words, Shultz is a moderate of some stripe, too.

And he hit a chord. Although anyone who knows American history can recall times when the political class was more divisive, it’s no picnic right now. And facing a host of problems at home and abroad, Americans are tired of the discord.

Imagine, then, a segment on Morning Joe (the show) wherein every time politicians or pundits from opposite sides of an issue publicly agreed with each other in some substantive way that some moderator from the show would deposit $100 of Starbucks’ money into a jar for DonorsChoose.org. It would be like the office ‘swear jar’ only in reverse.

And instead of pressing politicians and pundits to always beat each other up... which can, of course, be wonderfully entertaining... Morning Joe’s hosts would press for the occasional accord. It would be a win-win.

Scarborough could end the show tallying up the money and saying something like how smooth Starbucks goes down.

I think it's the best idea I've had this morning!

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to

Why Even Absurd Cause-Related Marketing Has its Place

Buy a Bikini, Help Cure Cancer New York City (small-d) fashion designer Shoshonna Lonstein Gruss may have one of the more absurd cause-related marketing campaigns I’ve come across lately. When you buy the bikini or girls one-piece swimsuit at Bergdorf-Goodman in New York shown at the left all sales “proceeds” benefit Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center . Look past the weak ‘ proceeds ’ language, which I always decry, and think for a moment about the incongruities of the sales of swimsuits benefiting the legendary Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Cancer has nothing to do swimming or swimsuits or summering in The Hamptons for that matter. And it’s not clear from her website why Shoshanna, the comely lass who once adorned the arm of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, has chosen the esteemed cancer center to bestow her gifts, although a web search shows that she’s supported its events for years. Lesser critics would say that the ridiculousness of it all is a sign that cause-related marketing is

A Clever Cause Marketing Campaign from Snickers and Feeding America

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor

Cause Marketing

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