The Big Warm Up

The Big Warm Up...and no we're not talking sports teams warming up before a game. Creativity Online has a Land's End video about this cause-marketing program.



Here are the facts:

• Land's End partnered with the National Coalition of the Homeless
  
• Together...they are launching the Big Warm Up
• What is it?
  
• "a national coat drive asking people to donate their gently used coats at Sears-based Land's End shops across the country"

What can you do to help? Watch the video...check out info on the Land's End website, & donate a coat or two to help warm someone else's winter season with your donation of a cozy coat.

Cause-marketing becoming more "sexy" less "caring"

I like Will Ferrell as much as the next person...but seriously? Cone Inc. of Boston (an agency that specializes in cause-marketing) describes the buzz-kill of so many cause-related campaigns. One of these trends is described as cause-lite in which "recession-weary consumers are becoming somewhat less receptive to activist messages, no matter how good the cause". With orgs like College for Cancer (the one Will Ferrell represents on the sunscreen bottle to the left), Twitter for Sh-tters, & Wherever the Need makes consumers even less likely to feel the need to buy a cause-product or a product that endorses an unrecognizable cause. Not to say that any of these causes are worthless...just pointing out that they aren't quite as recognizable as say...American Cancer Society or Susan G. Komen.

Mediaspot highlights a positive note of how recognizable causes are standing out through creative ads. Check out the 3 ads available on YouTube for the Blood Center of Central Texas - elevator, shopping cart, & burger to see my point. The outside-the-box stuff is actually working too! There's been an increase in 20% more blood since the campaign started...so get out there and "Redeem Yourself"!

while some people say just DANCE!...this site says JUST DRINKS

Just Drinks is a site dedicated to the drinks industry. I stumbled on it when checking out an article about Sunkist's latest promo. Sunkist's Take A Stand program was designed to encourage kids to raise money for their community through lemonade stand sales. The best thing about it is this isn't just an IDEA...Sunkist has helped kids raise over $3million for local charities since starting in 2004.

Pros on this promo:

• an interactive site to help kids come up with ideas/recipes to check out for Take a Stand
• info for parents to read up on how to find a local 501(c)(3) charity
• good press for Sunkist

Cons on this promo:

• how exactly can Sunkist keep track of who's selling lemonade under their name
  
• how to know if participants are donating 100% of $$ to their local charities
  

So the thing I'm curious to know is...although Sunkist encourages kids to help out their community (clearly a GOOD thing), how is that engaging the target market of healthy grocery shoppers say between 25-45 since my guess is the kids aren't the ones making the household grocery lists & shopping for those food items...?