Brands and Charity: Does Cause Marketing Drive Sales?

Product Red helps brands support charitable causes.Almost every major US brand supports charity in one way or another. Some companies have built such strong associations with the charitable causes that we immediately recognize the causes they support: McDonald’s has Ronald McDonald House, Wendy’s supports adoption, General Mills offers Box Tops for Education. Project (Red) has unified brands like Apple, Dell, Gap and Starbucks to support AIDS charities though purchase of (RED) labeled products (with little help from Bono, of course.)

The motivations for charitable giving are as varied as the causes themselves: issues important to the company’s founder, tax incentives, brand image, and of course, increased sales.

However, a recent study by BlogHer found that less than one in five consumers will switch brands, pay more or purchase more of a product based on a brand’s support for a cause. While consumers predict that brand association with a cause would make them more likely to buy, their actual purchasing behavior says differently.

If cause marketing tends not to drive sales, can marketing departments justify spending big bucks promoting charitable giving? The BlogHer study provides a few ideas to make charity campaigns more effective:

1. Make It Simple and Easy to Understand: 48% of respondents are most receptive to programs that donate a portion of sales to a cause. Make it clear how each customer purchase will directly contribute to charitable giving. For example, Hallmark donates 8% of the purchase of each Hallmark (Product)Red card.

2. Keep It Local: 46% are motivated to buy a product that supports a local organization, with that number jumping to 70% for adults aged 65 to 76. When consumers use their Target REDcard credit card, 1% of purchases are donated to a local school of the consumer’s choice.

3. Target Youth: 36% of young adults said they bought more of a product that supported a cause close to them, and 33% said they switched to and paid more those products. Brands interested in youth should pick causes that resonate with the 18 to 27 year old market and target those consumers. MAC and Lady Gaga donate every cent from the sale of MAC’s Viva Glam lipstick line to the MAC AIDS fund.

4. Pick Popular Causes: Choose a cause that has the widest appeal to your audience. According to the BlogHer study, the most popular causes are:

Breast Cancer (44%)
Animals (36%)
Children’s Causes (35%)

For more information at http://crowdscience.com/>