Paper Topic

Cause marketing, social responsibility, these seem to be the trendy buzz words these days.

According to a Cone Communications Study, consumers are showing increased willingness to switch to brands that support a cause. In addition, consumers are expecting companies to stand for something

For this project I plan to look into what the drivers are for customers when it comes to products and companies associated with a cause. How involved are the customers in the actual cause? Does it matter whether the cause is personally relevant to the customer or even related to the product/company? At this point, I am still working on focusing my topic, so this blog will be more of a sounding board to get my thoughts out on paper.

I will look at companies that use cause marketing to drive sales and branding as well as companies that use it as a business model. I thought it would be interesting to compare companies like Toms, Sweet Riot, and TRU2U that use cause marketing as a business model versus well-branded companies that are starting to integrate causes into their brand image.

Aside from a general interest in socially responsible companies, I have a personal interest in supporting TRU2U. TRU2U is a new socially conscious apparel brand that seeks to build awareness amongst consumers about fair labor practices and furthermore to create a dialogue about social issues surrounding the products we as consumers purchase regularly. The company takes the Toms business model a step further to involve the consumers in a discussion, it’s not about what’s right or wrong, it’s about understand the whole issue and the trade-offs involved.

The connection between understanding the value of cause marketing/social consciousness in companies and customer insights, as I see it, is the involvement of the customer in the experience. Does a cause lead to more customer involvement, does this ultimately build a deeper trust in the brand? Is it important that consumers are involved in the entire process? I think understanding why customers are choosing companies and products that support a cause will help companies more effectively choose which causes to support and better communicate their message.

Not surprisingly considering the trend, there is no shortage of articles discussing cause marketing recently. Many of them site a study from Cone Communications that ended up going to directly for the best information. The Cone CauseEvolution Study reports findings regarding consumer attitudes towards company support for social and environment issues. The study reports that 90% of consumers want companies to tell them what they are doing to support issues. It goes on to discuss consumer’s feelings towards brands related to a cause and purchase behavior for those brands versus other brands. Target consumer segments include Moms and millenials, since moms control a majority of household purchases and millenials have billions in discretionary income to spend. The report also lists the top issues consumers think companies should address as well as which industries they most expect to support causes which include food and beverage, automotive, and manufacturing. The study concludes with a report on how employees feel about the companies they work for supporting causes.

  

One article I read on Inc.com also brings up a good point about companies that use cause marketing poorly. It says that if consumers discover any misstep or insincerity behind a company’s cause, they will drop them. The problem is that many consumers are usually not well informed on the issues that they claim to support. TRU2U aims to change that attitude in customers. Their platform is to inform college consumers about fair labor issues, and what they entails in a global sense. While so many Americans may be quick to point out unfair working conditions, they’re looking at the issue often times from a very ethnocentric perspective. TRU2U wants to differentiate their products by teaching life skills, educating, and training college students on these issues through transparent marketing. There is a big grey area when it comes to social responsibility, it’s not cut and dry. So I think it will be interesting to discuss how this new focus on cause marketing will change consumer involvement in product development.