At Digiday Social, a case study was presented by imc2 for Secret deodorant, a brand they have been working with since 2003.  The first type of cause marketing is finding something of marketing interest that resonates with the core values of the brand.  For example, Secret’s core brand value is “empowering women” so imc2 latched on to Lindsey Van’s petition to allow women to participate in ski jumping in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games (visit LetHerJump.com to sign the petition).  The commercial, which can be seen here on YouTube, resonated with the Digiday audience and received a round of applause, to which the speaker was unabashedly flattered.  Although the YouTube video has only received 1,500+ views, the company forwarded the LetHerJump domain to their Facebook page, which was smart.  The Page has nearly 40,000 Facebook Fans, which can be marketed to repeatedly (although this should be done well, which is a whole other challenge).

As a side note, another speaker at DigiDay pointed out how the advent of social sites such as Facebook has created the opportunity to constantly market to an audience, which on the plus side can increase Lifetime Customer Value (discussed in a previous post) but on the down side makes it harder to evaluate the affects of a particular marketing campaign.

In order to effectively implement the brand-alignment kind of cause marketing, several steps need to be achieved through primary research (if you need assistance, the company I work with, C.A. Walker, does this).  First, you must know what values you would like the brand to stand for, then you can use surveying to evaluate your brand’s values currently in the mind of the target markets (if any), and whether the values you would like to have associated with the brand would be acceptable in the mind of the target(s).  You can also ask what nonprofits, if any, they donate their time to so you can determine those you may want to evaluate if their brand values are in-line with yours.  From there, you need to create opportunities to attach the brand value to a particular nonprofit objective and market it.  Lastly, you should then re-test the market post-campaign to see what lift was created in terms of brand value awareness, brand loyalty, likelihood to purchase/switch from a competitor, etc.

In the instance of the Secret campaign, although I was one of the persons clapping for the video’s message at Digiday, if they were to ask me I would tell them it did not move the needle much towards me purchasing their product (this is why it’s always good to test campaigns!).  While it had some positive lift in my understanding and appreciation of the brand’s objectives,  there are other factors at play when it comes to my decision to purchase deodorant that, if I became a Facebook Fan based on this campaign, would still not be communicated.  The campaign needs to be reinforced by standard product feature marketing, including price, whether it goes on clear, effectiveness and possibly also scent.  Ways they could swing my vote are:

1. Allow me to buy a sample size before committment of the next several months of my armpits to their product, or send me a free trial in the mail or via in-store handout.
2. Package trial-sized versions of different scents together, so I could determine which of several options I prefer.

The second type of cause marketing is the more typical “sponsorship,” expected to grow 6% over the next year to $1.61 billion, according to a recent IEG Sponsorship Report.  Much marketing discussion recently has centered on the increase in “microsponsorships,” which is the giving, by a company/brand, of a few hundred or few thousand dollars to consumers to fund pet projects.  There are pluses and minuses to the trend, specifically (numbers correspond to sources at bottom):

Pluses:

• Well-conceived programs can be priceless, both in terms of the value they provide society and the business benefits they bestow on the corporations and brands that undertake them.1
• They can be a truthful, sustaining, committed approach to improving the environment and people’s lives.1
• More marketers are latching on to this, and rightfully so, because there is more transparency in where the money is going.2
• For some marketers, microsponsorships present a much-needed icebreaker in social media.2
• Sponsorships may be more market research than marketing campaign.2
• They build databases of those consumers applying for grants or voting…so marketers can reach out to them in more meaningful ways.2
• 79% of consumers say they would be likely to switch from one brand to another (when price and quality are about equal) if the other brand is associated with a good cause.2

Minuses:

• Too often we see marketers adopt causes just for the sake of having one, which often results in a mismatch between the cause’s purpose and the marketer’s [reason for being].1
• Causes appear to be a convenient charity upon which a brand can piggyback to goose its Facebook friend count or incite some quick blogger hits.1
• Just as consumers quickly saw through the rampant green-washing of the past decade, brand beware: They’ll see through your cause-washing, too.  And even if they don’t, they’ll forget about you and what your brand stands for when you move onto the next shiny marketing idea.1
• Too often companies view cause efforts as a tax they must pay.2
• Even tiny sponsorships have to be closely associated with your brand…whatever you decide to pursue can’t be an isolated campaign.  It has to tie into a bigger program that attracts people with similar values and those have got to be clearly stated.2
• Microsponsorships make it easy to “lose control of the brand,” especially when doling out small sums to far-flung strangers.2
• One downside of these programs is that they are “just pecking away” at big problems.2
• For people to be more engaged is generally a good thing, but what are the tradeoffs if people think, “I’ve voted for this; I’ve spent half an hour online looking at these projects and signing petitions, so I’ve done my civic duty.”2
• Often microsponsorships lack focus, and it’s difficult to determine ROI.  The most successful sponsorships are long-term, sustained sponsorships. Microsponsorships fly in the face of that. It’s the equivalent of unfocused granting. You want to have an impact on a cause and be given credit for that impact.2

One of the largest and well-known microsponsorship campaigns currently is Pepsi Refresh.  In order to address the issue of hard-to-define ROI, “Pepsi is employing a battery of diagnostics, including gauging of brand-equity measures that correlate with volume. The brand has also partnered with Good, Global Giving and Do Something, third parties that are on-board to ensure quality and credibility. As for getting the word out about the brand’s impact, there are plans to profile the grant winners and highlight what they’ve accomplished with the money later this year.”2

An upcoming microsponsorship campaign by Prilosec OTC is one to keep your eyes on also.  Read Prilosec Works to Become ‘Sponsor of Everything’ for more on their efforts.

1 AdAge -  Cause Campaigns Must Benefit Brand and Greater Good

2 AdAge – Cause Effect: Brands Rush to Save World One Deed at a Time

Related posts:

1. Evaluating the ROI of Your Online Friends
2. Email Marketing Provides BEST Marketing ROI?

First, the different types of partnerships:

• One type, which I’ve been seeing a lot of lately, isn’t a true partnership.  It’s when someone tries to sell you something and they sugar-coat it as a “partnership.”  If it were truly a partnership, the company would be putting up their time, product/service, experience, effort, and/or money, while your company also takes some of these risks, in order for both to achieve increased revenue.  Instead, these “partnership opportunities” involve you putting up all the risk by purchasing their product/service, while they put up zero risk.  This faux proposal seems to me that the company doesn’t have enough faith in what they are selling to talk straight: “I want to partner with you” just sounds nicer than “I want to sell you something.” Granted, by buying what they’re selling, you may increase profitability for your customers, improving their ROI, and/or you may be lowering your overall costs, improving your ROI.  Call it a partnership if it makes you feel better, but I call it a sale.
• However, in the above example, should the selling company align their success to the performance of their client, i.e. they make money in a shared-reward revenue model, they could then call themselves a partner without me griping as much, as they would then have a vested interest in their client’s success.
• In the press release WPP and Omniture launch partnership to improve marketing ROI, a true type of partnership is highlighted.  The first company (Omniture) stands to gain significantly from the second (WPP) by offering its business clients greater ROI, and the second company (WPP) buys a significant amount of stock in the first (Omniture).  Thus, both take on risk and are equally committed for the partnership to work.  They then collaborate on sharing information, best practices and services to develop joint solutions for mutual clients.  In this situation, the companies share employees, with some from the first company (Omniture) going to work within the second’s offices (WPP), and training is conducted of the second company’s (WPP) employees in the first company’s (Omniture) products/services.  The second company’s (WPP) technologies, data, and products are integrated into the first company’s (Omniture) platform, thus the second company (WPP) can now deploy the first company’s (Omniture) solutions to clients with their add-ons.
• Even simpler, another type of partnership blends two or more company’s product/service offerings, with neither investing in the other, so together they can provide a greater solution to current clients, or reach a new or wider audience.  In this type of arrangement, partners are primarily finding a new way to market their products/services in a cooperative arrangement without changing what each are doing day-to-day.  The investment typically required in this case is to verify that the arrangement works and there is a market for it, as well as develop co-marketing materials.
• Another type of partnership is the Affiliate partnership, where one company simply refers business to a second company through their marketing efforts and receives a commission.  Affiliate partners typically will look for companies (Merchants) who are managing an Affiliate program, and apply to be their Affiliate through third party sites like Shareasale.com.
• There’s a special type of partnership that we’ve all heard about, the Sponsorship.  If one company can know enough about the other company’s demographic audience and can deliver it to them via a channel, such as an event, there may be an opportunity for a Sponsorship.  In BusyEvent’s Growing sponsorship revenue through brand partnership it is stated, “Real creativity is required…Simply placing logos on stuff isn’t going to fit into shrinking marketing budgets.  The emerging trend is to gather better data before, during and after the event so you have something tangible to show a brand to obtain their involvement in your event(s).  We use…reward-focused program[s] to know as much about a group of people as we can without anyone feeling manipulated.”
  • As an aside, the company that I work with, C.A. Walker, can assist with online surveys to segment audiences and measure emotional engagement to brands, intercepts during events for feedback, and “brand fit” studies to ensure the Sponsor and Brand are a good alignment that enhances the Sponsor’s image.
• The last type of partnership involves distribution, where two companies collaborate to sell and distribute the products/services of one of them.  This is also called a channel partnership.  There are various types of channel partner arrangements:
  • Partner sells products and/or services and deliver services.
  • Partner sells products and/or services but doesn’t deliver services.
  • Partner doesn’t sell products or services but delivers services.

The following is recommended in a true partner support program to increase and measure partnership profitability (from 2009 TSW Support Partner Program Best Practices – note: the PDF opened for me after downloading but not in my browser):

• Have at least four trained support staff per product, with recognized certifications and specific partner training.
• Offer 24x7x365 support for partners, with case tracking and reporting.
• Conduct initial and ongoing partner audits, with quarterly reviews.
• Conduct third-party quarterly customer satisfaction surveys, which is part of the partner’s overall scorecard tied to their income agreement.  Customer satisfaction is as critical in acquiring and retaining partners, as it is customers.
  • As an aside, if you need assistance administering customer or partner satisfaction surveys, C.A. Walker also provides this service.
• Create automated reporting of necessary metrics, reports and partner scorecards.
• Offer Web-enabled tools for partners to provide customers, and a partner portal.
• Put in place appropriate metrics, such as:
  • Quarter over quarter and year over year, revenue, net profit margin, return on assets and return on equity (new accounts established).
  • Track customer satisfaction measures over time.
  • Track partner satisfaction measures over time.
  • Track customer renewal/repeat purchase behaviors.
  • Establish and track cost per case and case resolution times (i.e. customer complaints) per million of total revenue.
  • Measures of product quality and reliability improvements (i.e. customer complaint case deflection).
  • Measures of ease of doing business with partners.

Companies have great opportunities in this economy to develop new partnerships that will enhance their market position.  So get out there and make some noise!

No related posts.