Cause Marketing and Branding: The Odd Couple Needs Counseling

A hugely successful cause marketing campaign should be on that omnipresent "careful what you wish for" list. After all, wonderful as the projects funded or improved reputation with consumers may be, your brand messages may at times seem to be in direct conflict. Today's consumers are ever-more savvy, so corporations need to be very careful of what they say versus what they do, or of doing one thing over there, while doing a completely different thing over here.

Alana Semuels recent reporting of the Unilever Dove/Axe disconnect for the Los Angeles Times brings that to light. And, as cause-related marketing becomes more and more necessary for brand differentiation in this land of abundance, many more corporations and brands should take heed.

In the case of Dove/Axe, Unilever has long since been awarded and highly regarded for their Campaign for Real Beauty and Dove Self Esteem Fund work -- and they have used it to great advantage. Now, another of the Unilever brands, Axe, with ad campaigns known for frat-boy style parody that tend to get a little too raunchy at that, has come up with another over-the-top, "Naughty into Nice" campaign. The problem: the "naughty" of Axe may be a significant public relations detriment to the hard-won "self-esteem" of Dove. Unilever isn't the only company that will face this sort of conflict, it is just, perhaps, the highest profile example thus far.

Like all good branders, Unilever, in both cases, narrowed their focus, got to know their specific customers intimately and did a lot of research. No one can fault them for that (and they are making a lot of money as a result). But, Unilever perhaps didn't anticipate the ever-more discriminating consumer and a media environment where brands basically have no choice: there is an open window on everything they are doing and how things are connected. So, if one ad campaign or marketing effort gets a lot of publicity, especially in terms of "doing good," every other campaign gets heavy duty scrutiny in comparison.

See what I mean? Careful what you wish for.

So, what are corporations and brands up against in this odd coupling?

First, it is certainly very difficult to be a multi-national corporation with gazillions (I'm using the term loosely) of brands under the umbrella (like Unilever or Procter & Gamble, say). In the old days, consumers were much less familiar with who owned what and so on. The twenty-first century land of information and news overload, on the other hand, makes it hard for most consumers to remain ignorant.

Second, every business is looking for a way to "leverage" sustainability, women's health, childhood obesity, and so on, to help make their brand stand out in a field of very similar competitors. Again, consumers see right through green, pink or goodwill washes -- so the brand has to really deliver on their promise at every level in order to be taken seriously.

Third, cause marketing and branding are a teetering marriage that demand serious research and some degree of corporate integration to succeed. These days brands are taking on causes because it seems to be the hip thing to do - a divorce waiting to be decreed. However, the many worthy and legitimate causes out there will not be taken that lightly. In fact, poorly managed couplings of cause and brand may actually result in more harm than good. (If Dove hadn't positioned the Self-Esteem Fund so prominently, this Axe conundrum would likely have faded into the woodwork, like so many other such campaigns.)

This current Unilever situation is only the first of the likely many more high profile contradictions between brand and cause messages to come. But, the marketing benefits of committing to a cause are significant, both in reaching jaded consumers and in the actual money contributed for social good. The incredible potential in pairing cause marketing with brands will continue to force the issue.

If corporations can learn to walk all that talk, the marriage may be saved.

Comments

[dadw5boys]

I agree if a corporation would fund research for 5 years and pay a couple of scientist and students to concentrate on one disease then announce that. The comsumer will know if they buy that product at least for the next 5 years some of the money will go to help them or their children in the furture.
FIDNING HONEST SCIENTIST SHOULD BE EASY THE CORRUPT ONE ALREADY WORK FOR THE COAL, FOSSIL FUEL AND COMMERENCE DEPARTMENRS TO CONVINCE PEOPLE GLOABLE WARMING DOES NOT EXIST.

[thesimulacra]

I think cause marketing could be causing more harm than good already - I'm concerned that when people see corporations taking up the mantle to do good deeds, they will be less inclined to actually do something themselves, feeling like the job is already taken care of. Not that I expect all do-gooding to suddenly cease, but if the image of poverty or the AIDS crisis becomes entangled with "we're a multi-billion dollar corporation and we're on top of this", the average person will just figure they should leave the causes to the corporations.