Now, I fully concede that I am a marketing geek. I love how I
make my living, so much so that I can single-handedly induce
narcolepsy when I get going about the latest, greatest campaign
I've seen or participated in. And my top "pet"
marketing discipline is cause-related marketing, or CRM.
\CRM is the mutually beneficial convergence of a business's
ideals and objectives with a charity: The charity receives money,
promotion and/or in-kind donations from a business, and the
business associates itself with a cause that resonates with its
customers, builds brand awareness and contributes in a socially
responsible way. American Express started the CRM movement in 1984
when it donated a portion of customer purchases to restore the
Statue of Liberty. The campaign earned $1.7 million in just a few
months, and a new facet of marketing was born. More recently,
Maxwell House worked with Habitat for Humanity in the "Build a
Home America" program. Maxwell House made cash contributions
and provided volunteer labor to build 100 homes nationwide in 100
weeks.
If you have any doubt about the power of CRM, consider the
following compelling statistics from a 1999 Cone/Roper report: 61
percent of consumers agree that CRM should be a standard business
practice, and 65 percent say they'd be likely to switch brands
or retailers to one associated with a good cause, when price and
quality are equal. "[CRM experts say] cause-related marketing
was once considered a 'nice-to-do,' but it's now a
'have-to-do,' " says Diana Kimbrell, owner of
Kimbrell & Co., a Sausalito, California, CRM firm.
"There's so much competition between products and services
out there, socially conscious consumers are going to choose the
companies that best represent their own social feelings. Companies
have gotten wise to this and realized the best way to build brand
loyalty is through an emotional connection-and that can be done by
aligning with a cause."
Content Continues Below
Donna Latson Gittens, president and CEO of causemedia inc.
(www.causemedia.com) in
Watertown, Massachusetts, can attest. "Companies have
discovered that CRM is a critical marketing ingredient that adds to
their long-term reputations," says Gittens, whose firm
specializes in a process called "causeMatch," which
identifies and establishes socially and financially rewarding
partnerships between companies and charitable organizations.
"Forward-thinking CEOs are concerned and committed to
involving their employees and other stakeholders in their
communities where they do business."
For instance, Gail Klein Bentley, 30, founder of Working Weekly
(www.workingweekly.com),
a media and technology firm in Charlottesville, Virginia, has
adopted day care as her company's cause, supporting it in three
ways: by running a national grassroots campaign to call for
legislation that makes on-site corporate day care more realistic;
by encouraging companies to adopt local sliding-scale day-care
facilities and provide funds for scholarships, supplies and
facilities improvements; and by supporting a local sliding-scale
center and offering on-site options for their own employees.
Bentley is so committed to her cause, Working Weekly will spend
one-third of its marketing budget on CRM for 2001. "If we can
market our brand and help make a difference, so much the
better," she says. "Our goal is not just to make profits,
but to change the world. What better way to do that than by
supporting causes of interest to us and our market?"
Kimberly McCall is the president of McCallMedia &
Marketing Inc., a marketing, public relations and business
communications agency in Freeport, Maine. Contact her at
(207)865-0055 or visit www.MarketingAngel.com.
Page 1 |
2 