An Overview of Cause Marketing

An Overview of Cause Marketing

Shane Jarvis

Marketing Management

Dr. James W. Nall

June 18, 2011

An Overview of Cause Marketing

During my research inquiries I found a common denominator response to a simple question basically stated, “Do you have any material on Cause Marketing”? Most have a puzzled glare and some responded, “On what”? I would respond with an example such as, “Well, have you heard about the fundraiser at Paw Paw’s Barbeque for little Allen Adams, for every meal purchased the owner is contributing one dollar towards Allen’s cancer treatment cost”, that is “cause marketing”. Once the example connection is made to the term the person immediately responds with a couple of examples themselves. I thought that this term disconnect must be due to cause marketing being a subset of corporate social initiates and I concluded it deserves being a topic just as corporations are making cause marketing a staple in their marketing efforts. In the following I will present an overview of cause marketing with the expectancy that the reader will begin to see the totality of effort spent by companies large and small from the local Paw Paw’s to the international conglomerates such as Procter and Gamble, Coke and Pepsi-Cola.

A definitional review of cause marketing as defined within our text as “the marketing that links the firm’s contributions to a designated cause to customers’ engaging directly or indirectly in revenue producing transactions with the firm” (Kotler & Keller, 2009). When any company for profit or nonprofit, institution or organization makes a decision to commit itself to a cause marketing program it must make careful considerations relative to the future of the company. The companies cause marketing effort has the ability to redirect its focus and brand image. True as the definition states that there is both a cause and effect (profit) but at the core cause marketing is about believing, believing that there is good...