Cause Marketing Gets Bigger. And Smaller.

Last week, Ad Age ran a brief article titled, “The Most Influential Cause Marketing Campaigns.” Much of the list is familiar; we’re all aware of the massive efforts like the Livestrong bracelets and Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. However, some of the campaigns on the list took on a decidedly narrow mission, such as AmEx’s restoration of the Statue of Liberty or the 1,000 Playgrounds in 1,000 Days from the Home Depot and KaBOOM.

When you divvy up the list that way, it brings up an interesting dilemma. For brands that are dipping their toes into cause marketing, should they go big or go small? Will they get more mileage from tackling global problems (such as the [RED] campaign raising money to fight AIDS) or from making local improvements (which we’ve previously discussed)?

For PR purposes, it’s hard to argue with the logic that bigger is better. Every October, the biggest brands bathe our supermarkets in a sea of pink to support breast cancer research, and consumers have regularly rewarded those who participate in this worthy cause. Other brands are tackling big problems by funding crowd-sourced innovations, as demonstrated in this post on design mind (as well as our earlier post on the subject).

Yet, looking back at the AmEx and Home Depot examples above, there’s something satisfying about the fact that their efforts produced results. These campaigns might not have solved the world’s problems, but they certainly made a big difference for the communities that were improved by their efforts. Likewise, when Whole Foods and Tasting Table hook up to fund microlending projects, they aren’t solving the enormous issues afflicting the world’s poorest countries, but they are making dramatic differences in the lives of many of the people residing in these regions. You might say that these instances of delivering on small problems are exactly the kind of thing we called out in our Down-to-Earth-ism trend.

Perhaps it’s fitting that Pepsi’s massive Refresh Everything campaign juxtaposes the categories for planet-oriented projects and neighborhood-focused campaigns on their website (and have separate groups ranging from $5,000 projects to $250,000 projects). Likewise, the majority of GOOD magazine’s GOOD 100  list leans heavily on local projects (like rebuilding a New Orleans football field or providing educational services in a 97-block area of Harlem) for every big project they commend.

To be clear, we’re not pooh-poohing “big” cause marketing. Of course disease research takes a long time to produce results, and that doesn’t take anything away from the validity of their fundraising efforts. But for smaller brands that are weighing their cause marketing options, it’s worth considering whether they want to make a small splash in a big pond or be a huge hero for a small community. Our Hometown’s Hero trend suggests there’s value in the latter.