University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Cause Marketing
Book

Cause Marketing

Build Your Image and Bottom Line Through Socially Responsible Partnerships, Programs and Events

Joe Marconi
Kaplan Publishing, 2002
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Your company's a success, thank you, and now you want to give something back. What should you do? Write a check? Start a foundation? Joe Marconi explains that cause marketing is all this and more. In cause marketing, you identify how your company can best make a contribution while leveraging its good deeds to improve business. This makes sense: people like to buy from companies that care. But it's not as easy as it sounds. How do you choose the right partner (or do you want a partner at all) and design a program? What are the potential pitfalls? Marconi's book is a primer, complete with ample real-world examples, on the principles of cause marketing, with insight on the challenge of taking credit without appearing phony or selfish. Although it is more rhetorical than practical, getAbstract.com recommends this book to senior executives who want to learn about the benefits - and drawbacks - of cause marketing.

Summary

Give and You Shall Receive

Corporate philanthropy long has been standard practice for many companies. While it traditionally involved monetary contributions to favorite charities, companies are now realizing that their good deeds can be incorporated into their overall marketing plans. Today, most companies include some sort of cause-related plan as part of their consumer marketing strategies. It's good corporate citizenship and good business.

Business for Social Responsibility, a consortium of companies who seek to maintain commercial viability while contributing to the common good, has stated that consumers are very supportive of these activities, and that charitable activities, in turn, provide tangible benefits to companies. Several studies have shown that people want to do business with companies that contribute to the community and the world by associating themselves with a cause. A 1996 study by Research International (U.K.) Ltd. revealed that 86% of consumers have higher opinions of companies who give back to society. According to the study, 64% of consumers believe that it is a company's moral obligation to engage in cause marketing activities. The group's ...

About the Author

Writer, lecturer, seminar leader and marketing communications consultant Joe Marconi has more than two decades of award-winning advertising, public relations and marketing experience. Especially recognized for his expertise in brand marketing and crisis management, Marconi has represented organizations such as Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Xerox and the Chicago Board of Trade. He is the author of ten books, including Crisis Marketing and Reputation Marketing.

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