Best Cause Or Corporate Social Responsibility Marketing

April 6, 2009

Verizon Wireless, which boasts the largest 3G network in the U.S., continues to seek new growth opportunities as it aims to deepen the interaction between customers and their mobile phones. In 2008, Verizon hooked up with Momentum Worldwide on a cause-related promotion targeted to the African American community, an underserved yet potentially loyal market.
   
The heart of the effort: an 11-city gospel choir competition, dubbed “How Sweet the Sound.” The promotion was built to increase African American consumers’ engagement with Verizon while creating a halo of goodwill for the brand. Live events featured text-to-screen audience messages of support that were projected on large screens and a text-tovote “V Cast People’s Choice Award” for the audience’s favorite choir.  To help boost morale in Houston following Hurricane Ike, the already low-priced tickets ($5-$7) were converted to free and a donation was made to the local Red Cross.
   
The competition began with choirs from across the country submitting applications online at howsweetthesound.com or by mail. The entries were ranked by celebrity judges and congregations through online voting, with the top eight choirs in each of the 11 markets advancing to live regional events that included gospel music appearances by Donald Lawrence, Marvin Sapp and Hezekia Walker. The finale in Atlanta included an all-expense-paid weekend trip for the finalists. Live simulcast events were hosted in nine markets for those congregation members who could not travel to the finale.
   
The interest in How Sweet the Sound was resounding, leading to its return in 2009. Some 83 choirs and 4,000 performers competed in churches with 119,000 congregation members. More than three-quarters of the 80,000-plus attendees were African American. The vast majority said they enjoyed the events and nearly one-third reported an improved opinion of Verizon. And that, no doubt, is music to the ears of Verizon execs.


   
When Sony and AIM began sketching out plans for a promotional campaign for the consumer electronics company’s Reader Digital Book, they were faced with a rather sad reality: Research shows that Americans were spending less time reading and, worse still, half of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 read no books for pleasure. Add those dour stats to the fact that the general public has not yet embraced e-readers in any substantial way, and the two companies had their work cut out for them.
   
What they came up with was a campaign called The Reader Revolution that sought to put the Sony Reader into the hands of 2 million prospective buyers. Using fun and innovative techniques, they actually achieved 2.2 million hand-to-hand interactions with potential buyers.
   
The effort also involved a strong social responsibility aspect. Hoping to combat the reader habit statistics, Sony and AIM in September of 2008 sought to ignite a fourmonth literacy movement by donating 10 e-books to U.S. schools in return for each consumer’s trial experience. In all, the push resulted in 15 million Sony Readers being provided to 150,000 schools across the country. Noble work, indeed, for a revolutionary war against illiteracy.


Still relatively new in 2008, NFL Network sought a cause marketing program that would
help strengthen community ties for its distributor Cox Communications.  Along with Civic Entertainment Group, it established Keep Gym in School to leverage its existing “Play 60” Campaign in the fight to get kids active and healthy. The integrated effort included PSAs starring NFL players, educational partnerships with groups such as the President’s Council on Sports and Physical Fitness, a Web site promoting a $10,000 grant program for middle schools, local PR events and donations to schools in need.  The campaign created 15.2 million on-air impressions and had a direct impact on thousands of U.S. students.