logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Time to Rethink Pink?

Jennifer Amanda Jones
October 30, 2013
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

 

Pink

October 27, 2013; Psychology Today

Ah, October. It’s time for the leaves to turn colors, the kids to carve pumpkins, and, of course, it’s time to eat pink bagels. Yes, you read that correctly. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and as you’ve probably noticed, stores of all types are awash in pink products—even pink bagels.

Popularized in the late 1990s and early 2000s, cause marketing is under the broader corporate social responsibility umbrella, which includes corporate giving, strategic corporate philanthropy, checkout charity campaigns, and the emerging social businesses. Cause marketing is expected to climb to $1.78 billion in 2013, an increase of 4.8 percent over 2012. But if you’re wondering where the money goes, you’re not alone. Gayle A. Sulik, Ph.D. and many others are asking just how much actually reaches the nonprofit organization.

Sulnik points out that companies engaged in cause marketing have “three primary objectives: (1) build a reputation as a good corporate citizen, (2) deepen employee loyalty through employee matching and cause related volunteerism, and (3) increase sales.” The bottom line in cause marketing is, in fact, the company’s bottom line: profits. To this end, she indicates it would be wise for companies to partner with nonprofits that have a strong organizational infrastructure and a mission with a direct emotional appeal. For example, the majority of funds from checkout charity campaigns go to charities that are easy to relate to, such as large children’s health charities (like St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital), and to nonprofits working on other health-related concerns, such as autism, breast cancer, or muscular dystrophy.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

If you’ve eaten a pink bagel this month, you are not alone. The breast cancer brand has become so ubiquitous it is akin to a guaranteed home run for cause marketing campaign managers. As Sulik wrote earlier this year, “The brand encourages people to buy and display pink in the name of increased awareness, improvement in women’s lives, faith in medical science, and hope for a future without breast cancer. The brand capitalizes on emotional responses related to fear of the disease, hope for a cure, and the goodness of the cause.” Talk about a brand filled with promise!

The big question is, who really benefits from cause marketing? It is difficult to get at the exact figures, but Sulik offers some interesting facts to consider:

Company – year, campaign Benefits to Charity Benefits to Company
Yoplait Yogurt of General Mills – 2008, pink lid campaign
  • $1.5 million donated (the maximum amount set in advance by company)
  • $5.9 million in sales (15 million yogurts, less 10 cents per lid)
  • Overall 14 percent jump in sales for Yoplait that year
Ford Motor Company – 2008, Warriors in Pink
  • $250 per limited-edition 2008 Mustang “Warriors in Pink” package totaling more than $500,000
  • Package (including automatic transition) added $3,045 to price of every car sold
  • Ford Mustang sales were up 62 percent by December 2009
  • Possible that the Warriors in Pink package helped offset the 32 percent decline in revenue in 2008
National Football League – 2009, A Crucial Catch Campaign
  • 11.25 percent of goods sold is donated to the American Cancer Society
  • 12.5 percent goes to NFL (which donates the 11.25 percent)
  • Rest of proceeds are divided between manufacturers and retailers of merchandise (37.5 and 50 percent, respectively)
  • The NFL or an individual teams is often both the manufacturer and seller

Many might look at these figures and think, “Hey, this is pretty good for the charity!” The nonprofit gains both public awareness and funds to support its programs. This is true; however, cause marketing may be doing more harm than good. Some studies indicate that consumers who purchase items related to cause marketing give less to charity directly.

Well-known scholar Angela Eikenberry has argued that cause marketing, which she labels “consumption philanthropy,” can have disastrous consequences. She argues, “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 wellbeing. For these reasons, consumption philanthropy compromises the potential for charity to better society.”

The bottom line, as Sulik writes, is that “Cause marketing is not philanthropy.” It is marketing—in pink.—Jennifer Amanda Jones

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Jennifer Amanda Jones

Jennifer Amanda Jones, Ph.D. is the Assistant Professor of Nonprofit Management and Leadership at the University of Florida. Her research interests include nonprofit management, philanthropic giving, and social enterprise initiatives. She is a member of Nu Lambda Mu, the international honor society for nonprofit scholars. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Jones was involved in research projects benchmarking the nonprofit sector in San Diego and in the State of California. Additionally, Dr. Jones has spent more than 15 years working with nonprofit organizations of various types and sizes. She also served on the board of directors for a community foundation.

More about: BrandingCorporate Social ResponsibilityFundraisingNonprofit NewsPhilanthropy

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Arab American Philanthropy
Tamara El-Khoury
The Nonprofit Sector and Social Change: A Conversation between Cyndi Suarez and Claire Dunning
Claire Dunning and Cyndi Suarez
Nonprofits as Battlegrounds for Democracy
Cyndi Suarez
Sankofa Philanthropy: Hip Hop’s Sixth Element
Jason Terrell
Why Social Change Films Matter
Cyndi Suarez and Saphia Suarez
Philanthropy Must Move from Charity to Solidarity
Son Chau

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Brown-skinned Arabic woman wearing a bowler hat and looking into the camera. She is standing in front of a bougainvillea plant.
Arab American Philanthropy
Tamara El-Khoury
The book "Nonprofit Neighborhoods" leaning against a wall
The Nonprofit Sector and Social Change: A Conversation...
Claire Dunning and Cyndi Suarez
Nonprofits as Battlegrounds for Democracy
Cyndi Suarez

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.