[This is part of a series of posts on the motivations of donors, ranging from most selfish to most selfless: the Spectrum of Givers]
Here’s how Consumers support a charity: they buy something for themselves.
“Cause marketing,” “embedded giving,” “consumption philanthropy,” all are fancy-pants phrases for your average transaction between buyer and seller with an important footnote: a portion of the sale’s proceeds will be contributed to charity.
Several problems have been raised about cause marketing. A donor can’t choose which charity to support, she doesn’t gets a tax deduction, she carries the cost of the donation eventually made to the charity (instead of being partially carried by the firm selling the product). Furthermore, the idea that a person can address the world’s problems by increasing consumerism is not only deliciously ironic, it’s absolutely false. And most depressingly, if a person truly thinks her purchase of fried chicken is helping women with breast cancer, she may be inclined to think that binging on trans-fats is all that she needs to do.
The underlying issue to all of these things is this: despite what Consumers (and the product marketers) would like to believe, these transactions are simply Not Gifts.
In and of itself, the fact that these are Not Gifts isn’t problematic. We all do dozens of things every day that are not acts of giving, including the favorite American pastime of Supporting Our Economy by Buying All Kinds of Unneeded Stuff.
It’s when this snippet of consumerism is mistakenly considered to be Gifty that everything gets all wibbly-wobbly. Thankfully, the confusion is accompanied by a simple solution of merely recognizing these transactions for what they are: regular marketplace exchanges with a clever bit of marketing attached.
Not a bad way to raise awareness.
Not a bad way to direct a couple cents toward disease treatment if you’re in the market for an iPod anyway.
Not a bad way to build customer and employee loyalty, or repair a celebrity’s image, or possibly get your standard Dragon introduced to the idea of charitableness.
But still, most definitively, Not A Gift.
Tweets that mention Spectrum of Givers: Consumers – Actually Giving -- Topsy.com // Jun 29, 2010 at 8:29 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Heidi Massey, Christine Egger. Christine Egger said: @peterdeitz fyi the ripples of Social Actions pebbles continue… reference to embedded giving blog post series here
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Why Aren't Cause Marketing Gifts Real Gifts? // Jun 30, 2010 at 8:05 am
[...] at Actually Giving doesn’t think cause marketing gifts are real gifts. ”Despite what consumers (and the product marketers) would like to believe, these [...]
Holt Murray // Jun 30, 2010 at 9:10 am
First, full disclosure: I work with Joe Waters’, from whose blog (debating this point) I found your post. That said, you’ll find numerous comments on his blog-posts in which I 100% differ in opinion with Joe. So, anyway…
I’m always glad to see Cause Marketing discussed as a topic, because I think the more people that learn about the values (and downsides; heck, everything has a downside) of CM, the better. However, on its face, your definition and examples of cause marketing are narrow and incomplete: ‘…a portion of the sale’s proceeds will be contributed to charity’, is merely a slice in the Cause Marketing pie.
Whether you believe that is the end all/be all of Cause Marketing, or it was an incorrect truism (all % of sales are Cause Marketing, but not all Cause Marketing is % of sales), you take away from your own argument by that genarlization. Either way, I still don’t agree w/ you, so, again, anyway…
In this case you’re right. People can’t choose the charity, BUT they can choose to give. Studies have shown that given the choice between two similar products with similar prices, they choose the one that gives more often than not. They’re choosing the one that gives to a charity & without making that choice the charity gets less. Gift.
It looks like the foundational sticking point to calling it a gift is that it benefits a for-profit. Which is highly understandable, as we’ve seen some for-profits that shirk responsibilities at the expense of others *cough-BP-cough*. Cause Marketing will never replace straight donations and gift-giving, but when a gift is delivered to a non-prof’s door, even if it helped a for-profit, I’m not going to reflexively look that gift-horse in the mouth.
There’s no tax-deduction for buying. This actually makes the case that this is a true gift, as people are doing it to do good, not to get back or a tax deduction; I’m not too worried that the gov’t doesn’t consider it a gift — I don’t get a deduction when I give my friend a gift for his birthday, but I’m gonna still call it a gift.
Gift.
Brigid // Jul 1, 2010 at 10:29 am
Hey Holt! First, I love the idea that not accepting a tax-deduction makes a gift MORE Gifty. This is nice. (Although I stick with my overall point that cause marketing isn’t giving. You may not have walked away from the register with a tax-deduction, but you DID walk away with an ipod, e.g.)
I responded more fully on Joe’s blog but I’ll sum up quickly here: a transaction that generates goodwill is a gift. A transaction that generates wealth is capitalism. Both can be revenue streams for a nonprofit’s bottom line. But only the first one is a gift.
I’m appreciating learning all the ins and outs of CM, so thanks for swinging by.