It’s no secret that companies like to tug at our heart-strings with their advertisements. For decades companies have employed cause marketing, which allies them with a nonprofit organization. We’ve all seen the ads, some big company wants us to buy their product, and when we do a portion of the proceeds will go to a nonprofit organization or a charity. It seems like a great idea, especially if it is a product you would use anyway. Some recent examples that you may remember are the Yoplait “Save Lids to Save Lives” campaign and the Coca-Cola “Protect the Polar Bear” campaign.
Yoplait’s has partnered with Susan G. Komen for the cure for years for their “Save Lids to Save Lives” campaign. From September to December each year Yoplait releases their yogurt with special pink lids. The pitch is that for each lid customers collect and send back into Yoplait, the company will donate ten cents to the breast cancer foundation. Yoplait heavily markets this campaign each year.
This past Holiday season Coca-Cola partnered with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Coke planned to turn their classic red cans white with pictures of polar bears over the winter (they later reverted to red cans because of customer confusion). Due to global warming, polar bears are losing their icy homelands due to melting. WWF is trying to find land to relocate the bears to for their survival. Coke jumpstarted the campaign by donating $2 million and pledging to match consumer donations up to $1 million. 
Watching these ads puts the idea in our heads that these companies are great and doing so much good. However, thats not always the case. The companies always boost their image in these campaigns, but sometimes the nonprofits don’t get as much out of the deal as we’re led to believe. An example of this is Apple’s involvement in the Product Red campaign. To raise money for AIDS research, Apple is one of the several companies that has released RED products, in their case a red iPod nano. Again, it sounds great. However, in the end Apple has spent about $100 million on marketing, but only about $18 million has been donated. In the end its up to the reader and consumers to decide how they feel about cause marketing. Are the pitfalls worth it in the end?
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