2. Motivating Change: Cause Marketing

2011 Quinnipiac University Interactive Communications ICM522de: Social Media Jan Bush

[MOTIVATING CHANGE THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA: CAUSE MARKETING]

Corporations aligning themselves with a nonprofit or a social cause often have a positive effect in people’s lives. In addition to providing more opportunities for feedback and product chats, trends show that brands engage their stakeholders through cause marketing. This paper will discuss the rise of cause marketing through social media networks.

Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing

Chapter 2: Cause Marketing Introduction In my office hangs a certificate signed1 by Lee Iacocca. The certificate recognizes my financial contributions to the renovation of the Statue of Liberty in preparation of her 100th birthday in 1986. In addition to contributing cash, I also used my American Express card to help fund Miss Liberty’s facelift. American Express donated a penny for every transaction and a $1 for every new account which raised $1.7 million (Cause Marketing Forum, 2010). According to Cause Marketing Forum 2, American Express pioneered “cause marketing” with this promotion in 1983.

American Express increased its business and we, as a society, benefited. That is the essence of cause marketing.

Fast forward from a time when only the Department of Defense and a few academics had access to the “internet” in the early 1980s (Computer History Museum, 1992) to today with over two-billion worldwide internet users and over five-billion cell phone users (PHYSORG, 2011). According to Wikipedia3, close to one-quarter-billion users reside in the United States, second to China with close to double that amount. Japan is third. In the United States, the Nielsen 2011 third quarter social media research report indicates nearly 4 in 5 active internet users also use social media. Of those, 53 percent follow a brand -- this roughly equates to more than 50 million people currently following brands at the time of this writing.

In addition to the sheer numbers, word-of-mouth marketing spreads through social media. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University conducted a study of 150,000 micro blog postings on Twitter that contained brand comments. Findings concluded that these messages influenced buying decisions (Jansen, Zhang, Sobel, & Chowdury, 2009). The researchers confirmed that “Customer brand perceptions and purchasing decisions appear increasingly influenced by Web communications and social networking services, as consumers increasingly use these communication technologies for trusted sources of information, insight and opinions.”

“Trusted sources of information, insight and opinions” are key words. The Social CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) blog post on September 18th of 2011 by Ted Rubin emphasized that “Authenticity is worth the risk because loyalty in this social media world can quickly grow from one person believing in – and purchasing from – your brand to entire networks supporting and recommending you.” In a talk on September 26, 2011, Zeynep Tufekci stressed to her audience at Harvard University that there is no separation between online and offline communications, “people are talking to people they know.” People listen to those they trust.

After watching a Chivas whisky commercial, Arianna Huffington asserted this to be the “most important trend in marketing: the recognition by businesses that there's much to be said for appealing to consumers' better instincts, and engaging them with something other than materialism, sex, money, and self-interest.” It’s natural companies want to “tap into” social media (Huffington, 2011)4.

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Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing Using social media to build brands and to do good “With more and more companies implementing cause-related initiatives, communications is increasingly critical to breaking through the clutter” (Cone, 2002). Social media helps “corporate citizenship” values stand out in the communication clutter. It’s a perfect fit with corporate responsibility.

The 2002 Cone Corporate Citizenship Study: The Role of Cause Branding confirmed “the powerful influence of companies’ social actions on American attitude and behavior.” The report continues that “Not only do Americans expect businesses to address social needs; they want companies to tell them how they are doing so.”

Social media allow likeminded people to bond. Once told, these “bonded” communities share corporate, social good stories through Twitter microblogs, Facebook likes and Google 1pluses – the electronic word-of-mouth marketing.

Take for instance TOMS Shoes. I first heard about TOMS Shoes from one of my daughter’s Twitter messages. TOMS Shoes donates “a pair of new shoes to a child in need” with every purchase. TOMS reaches digital natives by establishing clubs at universities. TOMS’ staff helps club leaders and members “gain valuable experience in Marketing, Event Planning, Promotions, Viral Marketing, Networking and Leadership.” Clubs hold local screenings of the TOMS’ documentary, put on events like “One Day without Shoes” and recruit new members to the club. This is crowdsourcing at its finest! I know -- my daughter served as president at her university after being inspired by founder Blake Mycoskie presentation. She has the special TOMS t-shirt and certificate of appreciation to show for her presidency – in addition to multiple pairs of TOMS Shoes in her closet that she bought. My daughter was one of over 5,000 applicants for seven intern positions at TOMS Shoes in 2010.

TOMS Shoes’ clubs created a strong community platform for collaboration both online and offline. TOMS has done very well for a company that started in 2006.

When Beth Kenter and Gaurav Mishra were questioned about Leveraging Social Media for Social Good by Campaign India, they expounded upon selecting a cause that “defines the value of the brand” with the “right fit” (Kenter & Mishra, 2010).

Their example of a perfect fit was the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) save the tiger campaign in India. WWF strengthened the cause by partnering with movie actor and producer Leonardo DiCaprio on Save Tigers Now. Rich in social media usage, people are encouraged to “spread the word” on Facebook, Twitter, and through email. There are videos, photographs and even e-cards to send to “family and friends.” A petition can also be sent to government officials. A highly visible click-through donation button encourages people to give. People can also donate by texting as promoted on the search synopsis in addition to the website.

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Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing A list of new cause marketing programs launched in 2011 compiled by Cause Marketing Forum can be found here. These companies and their causes appear to synergize. Nike teamed up with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for a Back for the Future campaign. They auctioned off 1,510 futuristic shoes in September of 2011 raising millions of dollars. These shoes replicate the pair Fox wore in the original movie. According to the Nike video, the power laces will arrive in 2015.

Mercedes-Benz looked to Facebook to host a “people’s choice” voting system, Community Stars Mercedes-Benz Dealers Give Back celebrating 125 years of the automobile. To enter, local charities submitted 60-second videos. People voted for the top five out of the final 15 in October of 2011. Often times, this type of cause marketing can become a “get out the vote” campaign versus improving customer relations. However, in the Attention Economy as described by Michael Goldhaber, Mercedes chose the perfect platform using the number one social network site – Facebook (Nielsen Research, 2011). Mercedes also gained the attention of devoted followers of at least 15 charities in the United States. This could easily have numbered in the hundreds of thousands of people as well as hundreds of philanthropic supporters. As Goldhaber stated, “attention is property…money flows along with attention.”

Facebook also encourages local charities and benefits to host pages to invite people. In Philadelphia, 24 West Artist Management supports local causes while promoting their musicians and bands. In December of 2010 they hosted a benefit show for Turning Points for Children and promoted it on Facebook. This helped the bands they manage increase their fan base while doing good.

The “doing good” by Atlassian software company inspired them to coin a new word “causium.” Causium is a derivative of freemium 5 and cause marketing. Atlassian donates to just one charity which makes it easy for them to track the impact of their efforts. The company donates approximately $80,000 per month to Room to Read. Room to Read promotes literacy and gender equality in education for developing countries which makes it a good fit for a software company. At this time, their efforts have touched 45,000 children (Sniderman, 2011). Atlassian employees and customers are involved through the Atlassian Foundation. Atlassian donates 1 percent of company and employee time plus 1 percent equity into the foundation. Employees also receive five free days of “foundation leave” where they can volunteer for Room to Read or a charity of their choice.

A community news and information platform, Patch.com, also gives employees free time to volunteer in their communities. Patch offers free ad space to charities. Their foundation seeks to provide funds for local reporters in underserved communities.

Employee involvement is good for the organization’s success. According to Cone’s March 2001 data (Cone, 2002), “employees whose companies support social issues are almost 40 percent more likely to be proud of their company’s values and nearly 25 percent more likely to be loyal to their employers than those whose companies do not engage in such efforts. Additionally, nearly six in ten employees (57%) wish their company would do more to support a social issue.” This still holds true today.

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Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing

Companies wanting to implement cause marketing can learn by studying Starbucks™ . This snippet of Starbuck’s October 2, 2011 home page tells their story of commitment to social change. Starbucks believes in “engaging, collaborating and openly communicating with our stakeholders.” Starbuck’s employees, vendors, customers and communities comprise Starbuck’s stakeholders. They work together and it shows throughout the organization. Their application pool is huge. My store visits in the States and Japan have convinced me that Starbuck’s staff includes some of the smartest and most charismatic digital natives in their communities.

Games have always been a way of teaching our young which brings in another element to cause marketing. The gaming industry has begun to embrace developing “video games for social change” according to Mashable Social Media writer Melissa Jun Rowley. Rowley states that “the fastest growing segment of entertainment is evolving into a new force of digital activism and facilitating social change.” Her examples of social responsibility games in her January 18, 2011 article are encouraging. People behaving responsibly provide a positive impact on others and encourages them to act responsibly.

Games for Change (G4C) Co-President Asi Burak believes “games are going to be the most powerful media of the 21st century” (Rowley, 2011). His goal is to turn a breaking news event into an interactive social-impact game within 24-hours. His G4C has focused on games for organizations like NASA, the United Nations and corporations “to help their employees find solutions for political, social and financial issues.” Scroll down the Mashable article to watch the ABC News clip here for more information on G4C. Rowley’s examples of impact games also include the IBMreleased, CityOne, a real-world business approach to energy systems and CEO2, a

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Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing sustainability game produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature and Allianz, a global financial provider.

Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) used cause marketing to solve a major problem; their research respondent base consistently dwindled for decades. Research fuels strategic planning. The CMO Council introduced Pause to Support a Cause in 2009 combining two causes, research and philanthropy. The campaign director and senior fellow of the CMO Council, Edward Martin, explained the project in his article posted September 15, 2009 on Ad Age Blogs, “This corporate social responsibility campaign will use a portion of the $18.9 billion spent on market research worldwide to create a global community of nonprofit champions, boosters, supporters and members willing to take part in online surveys as a way to channel funds to their designated causes, charities, foundations and nonprofit organizations of choice.” He further explains that the Council “hopes to bring a larger and broader group of people into the research process” (Martin, 2009).

Conclusion “Marketing is often a leading indicator of where a culture is at and, even more, of where it's heading. Marketing has always been most effective when it takes ideas that are in the air and crystallizes them, so that they resonate with us in ways often beyond our conscious understanding. This is what is so powerful about the combination of social media, marketing, and doing good.”

Arianna Huffington Huffington Post April 6, 2011 Cause marketing and social responsibility benefits everyone. Social Networking Sites help connect people to other likeminded people around the globe.

Conversations between online and offline friends influence buying decisions.

Demonstrating humanity and engaging stakeholders with a compelling cause energizes a brand.

As noted in the 2006 MIT Sloan Management Review, How Social-Cause Marketing Affects Consumer Perceptions: “Societal marketing may give a brand just the edge it needs to win the hearts and minds of the inundated, skeptical consumers populating today’s cluttered, super competitive marketplace.”

Future studies are needed to measure the results of these efforts. Has humanity changed? Are people more responsible towards others? Are they more responsible towards the planet? What social networking sites worked best? Is the world a better place in 2015 than in 2010? On this I hope the surveys scream “YES!” Jan Bush, 3 Oct 2011 ICM522de Bush Chapter 2: Cause Marketing

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Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing Helpful Sites Academia.edu: http://www.academia.edu/ Research papers by academics around the world Chief Marketing Officer Council blogs: http://www.cmocouncil.org/blogs.php Social CMO blog my favorite for this class on social media CiteSeer: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/ Scientific Literature Digital Library and Search Engine Sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF) eLab @ Vanderbilt University: http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/ Research human behavior in an online environment International Journal of Communications: http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc Online, multimedia, peer reviewed journals focusing on communications Pew Research Center: http://pewresearch.org/ Great site for data mining Rand Corporation: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs.html Summaries on peer reviewed research topics primarily on policy Social Science Research Network: http://www.ssrn.com/ Network of academic papers and conference presentations from around the world; many costs to download (find here; look elsewhere)

Vocabulary Affinity Marketing: brands identifying within a niche market most often with sports teams, entertainment events and social causes (Bloom, Hoeffler, Keller, & Basurto-Meza, 2006) Causium: combination of “freemium� and cause marketing termed by Atlassian software company (Huffington, 2011) CME: Coordinated Market Economies CSR: Corporate Social Responsibility Cyberactivism: also known as internet activism, offers social activists internet channels for communication such as email, websites, blogs, podcasts, etc.

Edutainment: educating through entertaining such as games eWOM: electronic word-of-mouth marketing ICT: information and communications technology NGO: nongovernmental organization OWOM: online word-of-mouth marketing SNS: Social Network Sites Zeitgeist: The spirit of the times

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Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing Links Sites with complicated links and in order of appearance: American Express card: http://www262.americanexpress.com/business-creditcards/?source=newushp Miss Liberty’s Facelift: http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id306.htm Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_subscriptions The Social CMO Blog post of September 18th 2011: http://www.thesocialcmo.com/blog/2011/09/how-social-media-can-generate-real/ Ted Rubin: http://www.tedrubin.com/ Zeynep Tufekci: http://technosociology.org/ Zeynep Tufekci Audience: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheon/2011/09/tufekci Chivas Chivalry Commercial: http://youtu.be/49Yzx06RLUo Arianna Huffington asserted: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ariannahuffington/companies-and-causes-soci_b_845657.html World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Save the tiger campaign: http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/index.html Leonardo DiCaprio: http://www.peopleandprofiles.com/ProfileLinks/Leonardo+DiCaprio.html?profile_id=58&type=wiki Save Tigers Now: http://www.savetigersnow.org/ Crowdsourcing: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2009/id20090615_946326.htm Nike Back for the Future: http://www.back4thefuture.com/ Mercedes-Benz Community Stars: https://www.facebook.com/mercedesbenzusa?sk=app_202769643121087 24 West December Benefit Show: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169237949770719 Games for Change, ABC Reports Video: http://vimeo.com/gamesforchange/games-forchange-abc-news IBM CityOne game: http://www01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/innov8/cityone/index.html World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Allianz Knowledge’s CEO2 game: http://knowledge.allianz.com/ceo2/en_ext.html

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Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing Notes 1

Lee Iacocca led the fundraising. My certificate signatures were printed, only my name on the certificate makes it unique from the hundreds of thousands produced at that time.

2

Cause Marketing Forum differentiates between social marketing (impact social behavior), cause marketing (generate business and help society) and philanthropy (charitable donations or grants). For this paper I am blurring the boundaries into one: cause marketing.

3

Statistics for this Wikipedia article were compiled in 2010 by the International Telecommunication Union (http://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx) 4

Arianna Huffington’s post on “Companies and Causes: Social Media Jumpstart a Marketing Revolution” connected me to many of the sites used here; which led to more sites.

5

Freemium derives from free and premium and has been used for a couple of decades.

Bibliography Bloom, P., Hoeffler, S., Keller, K., & Basurto-Meza, C. (2006, Winter). MIT Sloan Management Review: How Social-Cause Marketing Affects Consumer Perceptions. Retrieved from eLab @ Vanderbilt University: http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/research/papers/How%20SocialCause%20Marketing%20Affects%20Consumer%20Perceptions%20%5BBloo m,%20Hoeffler,%20Keller,%20Meza%5D.pdf Cause Marketing Forum. (2010). Background and Basics. Retrieved from Cause Marketing Forum: http://www.causemarketingforum.com/site/c.bkLUKcOTLkK4E/b.6443937/k.

41E3/Background_and_Basics.htm#AmEx Computer History Museum. (1992). 1980s. Retrieved from Computer History: http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/internet_history_80s.html Cone, C. (2002). 2002 Cone Corporate Citizenship Study: The Role of Cause Branding. Retrieved from Cone Inc.: http://www.coneinc.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/0/7c6165bb378273babd9584 15d58ec980/files/2002_cone_corporate_citizenship_study.pdf Goldhaber, M. (1997, January 23). The Attention Economy: The Natural Economy of the Net. Retrieved from The Well: http://www.well.com/user/mgoldh/natecnet.html Gunelius, S. (2011, January 12). 10 Marketing Trends for 2011. Retrieved from Entrepreneur: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/12/idUS210444896420110112 Hampton, K., Goulet, L., Rainie, L., & Purcell, K. (2011, June 16). Social networking sites and our lives. Retrieved from Pew Internet: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/~/media/Files/Reports/2011/PIP %20-%20Social%20networking%20sites%20and%20our%20lives.pdf Huffington, A. (2011, April 6). Companies and Causes: Social Media Jumpstart a Marketing Revolution. Retrieved from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/companies-and-causessoci_b_845657.html ICM522de Bush Chapter 2: Cause Marketing

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Motivating Change through Social Media: Cause Marketing Jansen, J., Zhang, M., Sobel, K., & Chowdury, A. (2009, November). Twitter Power: Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth. Retrieved from CiteSeer: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.155.3321&rank=1 0 Kenter, B., & Mishra, G. (2010, May 10). Leveraging social media for social good.

Retrieved from Campaign India: http://www.campaignindia.in/Article/228299,leveraging-social-media-forsocial-good.aspx Martin, E. (2009, September 15). The Era of Rewarding Research. Retrieved from Ad Age Blogs: http://adage.com/article/goodworks/marketing-erarewarding-research/139010/ McCaughery, M., & Ayres, M. (2003). Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.

Mitra, R. (2011, 7 13). Framing the corporate responsibility reputation linkage: The case of Tata Motors in India. Public Relations Review, doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2011.06.002. Retrieved from Academia.edu: http://purdue.academia.edu/RahulMitra/Papers/781586/Framing_the_Corpor ate_Responsibility-Reputation_Linkage_The_Case_of_Tata_Motors_in_India Nielsen Research. (2011, September). State of the media: The Social Media Report Q3 2011. Retrieved from Nielson: http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/reportsdownloads/2011-Reports/nielsen-social-media-report.pdf Ostrow, A. (2010, March 16). Facebook and Twitter Making a Major Impact on Purchase Decisions [STATS]. Retrieved from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2010/03/16/facebook-twitter-purchase-decisions/ Passikoff, R. (2010, November 4). 11 Branding and Marketing Trends for 2011.

Retrieved from Branding Strategy Insider: http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2010/11/11-branding-andmarketing-trends-for-2011.html PHYSORG. (2011, January 26). Number of Internet users worldwide reaches two billion. Retrieved from PHYSORG.com: http://www.physorg.com/news/201101-internet-users-worldwide-billion.html Rowley, M. (2011, January 18). Why video games are scoring big for social good.

Retrieved from Mashable Social Media: http://mashable.com/2011/01/18/games-social-good/ Sniderman, Z. (2011, March 29). How one software company turned freemium into philanthropy. Retrieved from Mashable Social Media: http://mashable.com/2011/03/29/atlassian-causium/ Temin, D. (2011, August 4). The 10 "Don'ts" of Corporate Social Media. Retrieved from Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviatemin/2011/08/04/the10-donts-of-corporate-social-media/ Tufekci, Z. (2011, September 26). Social Media and Dynamics of Collective Action under Authoritarian Regines. Retrieved from Bekman Center for Internet & Societ at Harvard University: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheon/2011/09/tufekci

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