Defining Cause Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility

Defining Cause Marketing & Corporate Social Responsibility

Is Cause Marketing simply attaching your brand to a societal subject and posting on social media? There has to be more to it than that.

We've all seen brands start to pay a lot more attention to subjects of interest and take stands as they see fit

Watching a corporation take a stand for things they believe in is great to see. Does this fit under cause marketing? Many assume that by updating a logo or by doing a few social posts, it fits under that realm. But CSR and cause marketing encompasses so much more.

Adding a CSR section to your website doesn’t do the cause any justice. It’s about actually taking action toward the cause.

While any marketer will encourage bringing core values of the company to the forefront, supporting a cause is much more expansive

It may involve marketing channels or tying sales to a charitable cause. But it can go beyond those.

Back in 2013-2016 era, I was running eCommerce across brands of all kinds. From Pedigree to Kleenex, Gatorade to Readerest, Depend to Degree…every eCommerce program was super unique. Charged with driving Amazon, Walmart and their digital shelf, the end goal was revenue. We created offers, tested audiences, created personas and worked with agencies in charge of other channels to ensure it was executed flawlessly.

As part of that, a cause marketing piece came up. Depend wanted to end the stigma of incontinence. Outbound marketing can only do so much to achieve to that end. Alongside all of our efforts, the agency teams created Drop Your Pants for Underwareness. For any people who posted images of themselves in Depend shorts, Kimberly-Clark donated $1 to United Way and Simon Foundation for Continence. It all culminated with a huge event in NYC where we took over Times Square with thousands who attended in support of the movement.

Brand exposure went through the roof. Sales crushed it, including eCommerce. And Kimberly-Clark notched a win for truly championing charity.

If you're going to explore cause marketing, truly give it the effort.

I recently bought a few things on Chewy.com – another retailer I led for eCommerce. You can now create your pet profiles (hello, data win) that will help the site provide you specific products to browse. If they were going to tie in cause marketing, they might go the route of a donation wrapped in a sale. Or, what if they tied in the ability to register to volunteer at local pet shelters in honor of your love for your pet?

What if Chewy could then showcase how many pet owners it hooked up to local pet shelters to serve, knowing how many hours they did, who was most involved…maybe connecting offers to those who volunteer the most hours?

That is when cause marketing and CSR becomes a true win.

A win for the brand. A win for the consumer (easy way to help), and a win for society. You could take it a step further and allow them to connect and donate to local pet shelters and related organizations, bringing the monetary side in even further.

The next time you think of cause marketing, think bigger. It’s not just a one-month theme. It’s not just about more sustainable packaging. Those are points of differentiation, for sure. But what makes you a champion for a cause?

You can acquire a customer through cause marketing using discounts or donations tied to the offer. You can retain them through CSR messaging and packaging. But to create long-term, loyal customers through a cause marketing lens, it really requires innovation.

There are platforms out there that allow for all of the above. I’m proud that VOMO is a player in this space from the volunteer side of the equation.