Why all companies should do cause marketing

When you first think about marketing you don’t associate it with a cause. However, there’s a type of marketing called cause marketing that’s becoming trendy. What’s it about? It basically pairs a company or brand with a social cause or cause-related organization for mutual benefit. In a nutshell, people wish more of the products, services, and retailers they use would support causes.

As Bill Fleishman mentions in the 2013 Cone Communications Social Impact Study, “consumers are more astute and no longer buy purpose alone. Social impact is the new standard. It’s not just about standing for a critical social and environmental issue; it’s about progress toward solutions.”

And this is exactly what some companies are doing. In the last few years, we’ve started to see more industrywide “coopetitive” cause marketing campaigns that have proved to work. Take the case study published by Contagious about the New India based lighting brand Halonix.

The company focused on one of the country’s most critical problems: violence against women. This was exacerbated by poor lighting in many streets, which are then deemed unsafe and help perpetuate the issue.

Working with Cheil India Gurgaon, Halonix wanted to be positioned as a socially responsible brand by helping women feel safer. So they started The Safer City Project.

How it worked

On their Facebook page, they asked people to identify the darkest and most dangerous streets in New Delhi. Then they set up Halonix billboards and kiosks that were like streetlights at night.

Not only did it reinforce the company’s tagline (The Right Light), but it also addressed a key problem. They received excellent media coverage and people have requested that the campaign be implemented in other parts of the country.

And the company also had a lot to gain. The brand recall grew from 20% to 70%, they gained over 100,000 engaged Facebook users in a couple of months, and had a total reach of more than 6 million. The project also won a Bronze Spike in Media.

The moral of the story

No matter which sector or industry you’re in, cause marketing can bring you many benefits and can be executed in exciting and creative ways. As stated in Do well. Do good., “cause marketing presents a unique opportunity for companies to simultaneously do well and do good, or better yet, to do well by doing good.”