Code (Red) for Cause-Related Marketing

by Diane Farsetta — March 12, 2007 - 11:24am
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A year into the Red campaign -- a cause-related marketing effort that allows partners to profit from charity -- $100 million has been spent on marketing, but only $18 million has been raised worldwide for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. "The disproportionate ratio between the marketing outlay and the money raised is drawing concern among nonprofit watchdogs, cause-marketing experts and even executives in the ad business," reports Advertising Age. "It threatens to spur a backlash, not just against the Red campaign ... but also for the brands involved," Gap, Apple and Motorola. The Global Fund's Rajesh Anandan defended Red: "The launch cost of this kind of campaign is going to be hugely frontloaded." The website buylesscrap.org parodies Red, stating, "Shopping is not a solution," and encouraging direct donations to the Global Fund. Professor Mark Rosenman explained, "There is a broadening concern that business is taking on the patina of philanthropy and crowding out philanthropic activity and even substituting for it. It benefits the for-profit partners much more than the charitable causes."

Main Source: 
Advertising Age, March 5, 2007

Comments

You Should Do More Research

Submitted by EMoore1013 on March 14, 2007 - 11:31pm.

One of the things I like about the "Weekly Spin" is the refresing way the posts present a more objective view of reality then the spin we see far too often in the mass media. I was, therefore, understandably mystified to read the above post in this week's e-mail.

Certainly I understand that so-called "cause-related marketing" is often better for the bottom line of the for-profit companies then it is for the bottom line of the charitable recipient of the proceeds from the retail sales. I am not so naieve as to believe that for-profit corporations take actions without regard to their bottom line profit margin.

My dismay at reading the above post is that the author focuses exclusively on the article that appeared in Advertising Age magazine and excluded subsequent articles that appeared in the on-line versions of both The Independent (from the UK) (the artcile can be found at: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2341310.ece) and The Christian Science Monitor (the article can be found at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0312/p01s02-wmgn.html). Both those articles refute some of the contentions in the Advertising Age article.

For a website and organization that claims to be free from "spin" I find the one-sided reporting in this instance disturbing, at best. At worst, I am reminded of the end of the novel Animal Farm in which the other animals can no longer tell the difference between the pigs and the humans.