Pepsi sponsors New York leaderboard

The big news so far this week is that location-based social network, Foursquare, has sold its New York leaderboard to Pepsi. And all for a good cause. For every point added through December 13th, CampInteractive, which empowers inner-city youth with technology skills and mentoring, gets four cents.

This could mean up to $10,000 for CampInteractive.

It’s hopefully the beginning of a long line of cause marketing initiatives using Foursquare, something I’ve written about before.

Like you, I’m eager to use Foursquare for cause marketing. Here’s what I’ve learned since I last wrote about it.

Foursquare is what it is. It’s nice to think about all the cool add-ons you could suggest to Dennis and his team to make Foursquare more useful for causes. “Wouldn’t it be great if Foursq...

I love Starbucks. I love Product (RED). I love cause marketing.

If you have a problem with any of these you should probably leave now.

Through December 1st when customers spent $15 on any purchase Starbucks automatically made a $1 donation to The Global Fund on their behalf. Customers also got a copy of the exclusive All You Need Is Love Holiday CD for free.

But that’s not all.

On December 1st, Starbucks commemorated World AIDS Day by donating 5 cents from every beverage sold that day as well as $1 from every Starbucks (RED) product purchased in stores.

To date Starbucks has generated contributions equaling more than 5 million daily doses of antiretroviral medicine through the purchase of Starbucks/(RED) products.

But no good deed goes unpunished.

A recent Nonprofit...

Start-up presents sponsor activation opps

Of all the different social media tools I’ve tried (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, blogging, etc.), a new one I just started using, Foursquare, probably has the most potential for cause marketers.

Why?

Because the backbone of Foursquare is the businesses at which its members visit, check-in and score points.

When you pop into a store, bar or restaurant you can earn points, badges or can even become mayor of your favorite hangout if you “check in” enough. You can also share tips and comments with your friends, check to see if any are close by, give them a shout-out via text or phone and broadcast your Foursquare activities on Facebook and Twitter.

Smart businesses recognize that Foursquare lets customers build the buzz for them. Customers spread the news of cool hangouts or great pl...

Renata von Tscharner, President of The Charles River Conservancy (CRC), isn’t sure why Absolut chose her organization to receive the charitable windfall from its new Absolut Boston Vodka. But she’s thrilled they did.

Under the agreement, CRC will receive a $50,000 gift from Absolut that the Boston-based environmental group will use for programs that are generally difficult to fund. “Advocacy work is one area,” said Renata, “and volunteer programs that help repair and beautify the parklands around the Charles River.”

For an organization with an annual budget of $450,000, Renata said the Absolut gift can be described as nothing less than “huge.”

But there’s more.

Absolut Vodka created a free-standing Wall of Pride to celebrate the launch of the new flavor. The city’s most belo...

Powerful presentations are the backbone of most successful cause marketing pitches. Whether you’re talking to one person or a hundred, the ability to speak compellingly, sincerely and briefly can be a deciding factors in earning a company’s cause business.

I have no doubt that speaking well has made a huge difference in my success. Representing a small, relatively unknown hospital in Boston requires not only better ideas than our competition, but also the eloquence to make them glow more brightly.

So in the spirit of the bright and hot summer sun, which we are just starting to enjoy here in Boston, here are 11 ways to make sure your next cause marketing presentation is the hottest and brightest thing in the room.

In battle the eyes are defeated first. I hate to admit it, becaus...

Assistant Professor Angela Eikenberry has written a thoughtful and provocative article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review entitled The Hidden Costs of Cause Marketing. In it, Professsor Eikenberry makes her case against cause marketing or “consumption philanthropy,” as she calls it.

Consumption philanthropy individualizes solutions to collective social problems, distracting our attention and resources away from the neediest causes, the most effective interventions, and the act of critical questioning itself. It devalues the moral core of philanthropy by making virtuous action easy and thoughtless. And it obscures the links between markets—their firms, products, and services—and the negative impacts they can have on human well-being. For these reasons, consumption philanthropy ...

The Tour de France, the world’s most famous bike race wrapped up last weekend–sadly, without our hero Lance in yellow. It’s been a tough struggle for the Tour the past couple of years. First, it didn’t have a big name rider like Lance involved anymore. But an even bigger problem has been the drug scandals that have knocked out some of cycling’s best riders and left a blemish on the sport.

And sponsors don’t like controversy. T-Mobile and Adidas are just two of the premium brands to exit the event. Not that the Tour ever attracted a lot of well known brands to begin with, at least ones we’re familiar with here in the states.

Faced with a tarnished image, the Tour regrouped for 2009. Lance was back, which helped I’m sure, but it wasn’t enough to bring back the big sponsors.

Readi...

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book review of Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price (which I learned of from one of my new favorite bloggers and twitterers @danblank) he shares this study from an MIT economist.

He offered a group of subjects a choice between two kinds of chocolate—Hershey’s Kisses, for one cent, and Lindt truffles, for fifteen cents. Three-quarters of the subjects chose the truffles. Then he redid the experiment, reducing the price of both chocolates by one cent. The Kisses were now free. What happened? The order of preference was reversed. Sixty-nine per cent of the subjects chose the Kisses. The price difference between the two chocolates was exactly the same, but that magic word “free” has the power to create a consumer stampede.

I’ve seen and tapped the ...

A cause is an important cornerstone in many sponsorship platforms. Today's "key learning" comes from Joe Waters, who is the Director of Cause Marketing for Boston Medical Center, an avid blogger at Selfishgiving.com and a rabid Boston Red Sox fan. In addition to being a one-time winner of the SponsorPitch Friday Caption Contest, he has agreed to lend us his insights on cause marketing, which is more important than ever after Performance Research revealed that 41% of consumers believe sponsorships of nonprofits should increase to raise opinions of corporate America.

I’ve written five other posts to get you to this point: you’re sitting across from a decision maker and finally have your shot of actually selling a sponsorship. Of course, you may not be talking to just one person. You ...

TAGS: Non-profits, Cause Marketing, Sales

A cause is often the cornerstone of many sports and entertainment sponsorship platforms. Today's "key learning" comes from Joe Waters, who is the Director of Cause Marketing for Boston Medical Center, an avid blogger at Selfishgiving.com and a rabid Boston Red Sox fan. In addition to being a one-time winner of the SponsorPitch Friday Caption Contest, he has agreed to lend us his insights on cause marketing, which is more important than ever after Performance Research revealed that 41% of consumers believe sponsorships of nonprofits should increase to raise opinions of corporate America.

Now that you have a some strategies for finding qualified prospects, let’s look at making some progress at getting some extended face time with new prospects that are neither current sponsors nor aw...