Cause Marketing Trends Whitepaper

1. CAUSE MARKETING WORKS
The era of consumer participation has clearly arrived. With enough blog posts daily to fill
The New York Times for the next 19 years, consumers have a voice — and social, digital
and mobile technologies will continue to enable their participation.
Nielsen reports that smart phone sales now account for 25% of the U.S. mobile phone
market. It is expected that smart phones will hit 50% of the market by the end of 2011.
This has big implications for marketing communications, especially when it comes to
cause marketing campaigns, and it’s just one of three core reasons Cause Marketing is
more important than ever before:
• Consumers Have a Voice – As noted above, consumers are adopting social
technologies in record numbers. They can connect directly to other consumers and
the brands, which wasn’t possible 20 years ago. They are expressing themselves
both online and in their shopping patterns. According to Nielsen’s most recent
Global Online Survey on Business Ethics and Fair Trade, more than 80% of the
world’s Internet users think it is very or somewhat important that companies
implement programs to improve the environment (88%) and/or society (84%).
• It’s the Economy, Stupid – Consumers care about the companies that support the
causes that matter to them. More importantly, many consumers are less
financially secure and are looking for brands they purchase to join them in
making contributions to charitable causes. Brands that do will be rewarded. The
PRWeek/Barkley Cause Survey found that 3 out of 4 consumers would consider a
brand they don’t normally buy if it supports a cause. And 2 out of 3 say they will
pay more for a brand that supports a cause.
• Commoditization and Lack of Differentiation – As more copycat brands appear
and the functional benefit gaps decrease between brand innovators and followers,
the emotional connections that brands can create with participants become even
more critical. The best way to create those emotional connections is with cause
marketing.

2. Let’s look at the seven rules of cause marketing for 2011 and beyond:
Rule #1: Start by Listening to Your Core Audience (Participants)
We recommend that companies start by taking a look at what matters most to their core
customer, not their CEO. It’s not that the CEO shouldn’t have a voice, but good old-
fashioned research should be your top priority.
In addition to your ongoing consumer research, conduct a comprehensive social media
audit to find out what is being said about your brand online. This audit will provide
insights that will help you determine which causes really resonate with your consumer.
Once you have your baseline audit, begin regular social media monitoring to stay on top
of consumer conversations. At this juncture, you should also develop a strategy for
engaging with customers in social media, reactively, proactively or both.
Rule #2: The Cause Program Must Connect Emotionally
As most CMOs have seen, competitors will always try to copy your products’ functional
attributes and benefits. Gatorade and Powerade might have similar hydration capabilities,
but the brands may have completely different emotional connections with their
consumers. An effective cause marketing program can cement these brand connections,
creating stronger consumer loyalty.
Just over half (56%) of American consumers claimed they would purchase a brand that
supported a worthy cause, according to the Nielsen Global Online Survey on Business
Ethics and Fair Trade.
Rule #3: If Your Program Is in a Silo, It Will Likely Fail
Too often companies put cause marketing on a checklist without looking at how they will
integrate it into their marketing efforts, employee communications or even packaging.
The best programs communicate with the appropriate audiences in the appropriate
channels and don’t sit in a separate team that isn’t integrated into the core brand activity.
Thirty-one percent of the PRWeek/Barkley Cause Survey’s corporate respondents who
have cause programs said CEO or leadership interest in using cause marketing is what
prompted the company to launch a campaign. That leadership is also essential in making
sure that support and marketing of the cause permeates the entire organization.
Don’t forget that your employees can be the most valuable advocates you have in
promoting your cause initiatives. Make sure they are well informed and invested in the
program. People want to work for companies that care. Cause marketing is one more way
to create a motivated workforce.

3. Rule #4: Start with ROI Metrics
Before you launch your cause marketing program, you must have a conversation about
ROI. Not everything you do will impact the bottom line, but increased customer loyalty
clearly matters.
Companies utilize many measurements for their cause programs, and these three often
bubble to the top:
• Purchase intent
• Brand preference
• Employee engagement
No matter what kind of cause program you ultimately choose, it is vital to discuss and
formalize your metrics before you can engage in a thorough planning process.
Rule #5: Consumers Want to Participate
Pepsi Refresh really knocked it out of the park this year by enabling a high level of low-
effort consumer participation.
Here are five tips for ensuring consumer participation:
1. Toot your own horn. Don’t hesitate to promote your cause program and let your
customers know how they can get involved. Make sure you spread the word via
all your available marketing channels.
2. Empower consumers. Let consumers guide you in developing a program that
resonates with them and makes sense for your brand. Make them aware that they
have a stake in the success of the program.
3. Keep it simple. The more steps you add to the process, the fewer consumers will
follow through.
4. Help consumers spread the word. Word of mouth can be your most powerful ally.
Give consumers the ability to tell their friends about their participation via one-
click e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and other means.
5. Be transparent. Consumers want to know where the funds are going and how they
will be used.
Rule #6: Mirror Images, Not Mere Images
You must be a mirror image of your brand’s truths, not a mere image.
Creating mirror images is a lot easier than trying to make mere images hold up over time.
If you aren’t sure that what you are saying will be true about your brand in five years,
then you’d better rethink whether it is a truth. Consumers have enough tools to kill a
program that isn’t built on “being real.”

4. If you are going to play in the cause space, then walk the walk. It’s vital that you choose
a cause that is compatible with your known business practices, corporate culture and
reputation. Consumers will be alert to any disconnect between your cause message and
the realities of your business, and they won’t hesitate to speak up.
Rule #7: A One-Size-Fits-All Approach Will Not Work
A cause marketing program that works well in the United States has no guarantee of
being equally successful in China or Italy. Consumers in different markets are markedly
different in their use of social media and their interest in cause marketing.
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review quoted data from the Trendstream
Global Web Index that spelled out significant differences in online behavior between
various cultures. For example, Chinese and Indian Web users are three times more likely
to microblog than American users and twice as likely to share videos, whereas Western
users (North America, Europe and Australia) are more active when it comes to photo
sharing and managing social network profiles.
The fact of the matter is that a successful cause program in the United States may need to
be materially different to impact consumers in other regions of the world.
Summary
A carefully planned and executed cause marketing program can have significant tangible
and intangible benefits for a brand.
Barkley Cause is an integrated Cause Marketing practice that started in 1995 with the
launch of Lee National Denim Day. Since 1995, Barkley Cause has helped launch and
nurture programs for numerous brands including H&R Block, Sonic Drive-In, March of
Dimes and L’Oréal Paris. Contact Jeff Fromm at 816.682.5401 or
jfromm@barkleycause.com if you want more information on the trends impacting cause
marketers in 2011 and beyond.
If you are interested in learning more, send an e-mail to jfromm@barkleyus.com, and we
will schedule a time to talk via phone.