The Cause Marketing Spotlight is a regular feature where we look at cause-branded campaigns in the world and talk about the three core areas that determine successful cause marketing campaigns:
- The Partnership between brands and the causes they support.
- The Effectiveness and reach of the marketing campaign.
- Whether or not the campaign is doing substantial Good.
At times, we’ll cover campaigns being run by friends, or by other parts of the Causemedia Group family. When we do, we’ll disclose that.
Disclosure: the auction component of eBay’s 30 Days of Green is being run by sister company Kompolt Online Auctions (See?)
Concept
Highlight eBay’s eco-friendly position in the eRetail landscape: 1) by showcasing the buying and selling of used goods and 2) by partnering with Hearst Corporation (Publisher of Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Food Network Mag and many others) to offer celebrity items and experiences and generate funds for The Nature Conservancy. The auctions feature tie-ins to Hearst (and partner’s) properties, like VIP tickets to Iron Chef America, a tour of the Popular Mechanics Test Track, or even lunch with the editors of Marie Claire
Partnership
The partnership between Hearst and eBay works. Not only is eBay driving promotion to the campaign through its own home page and member pages, but the campaign is being featured in 15 of Hearst’s magazines during the month of April. They’re doing a great job leveraging off each other’s assets. The integration with The Nature Conservancy seems less effective – TNC has a lot going on in April, and this campaign hasn’t gotten a lot of mention by them.
Is it effective?
The 30 Days of Green campaign offers a solid promotional hook for eBay’s Green Team, which promotes product reuse as a way to reduce CO2 emissions and keep trash out of our landfills. The campaign ties nicely into the Green Team’s challenge this month: for every member that pledges to reuse instead of buying new, eBay will donate to protect an acre of forest. Overall, the promotional components do a good job of reinforcing the message that buying on eBay = green buying.
Does it help?
So far, 64,000 acres of forest will be protected, and The Nature Conservancy stands to raise $25,000 or so from donate-at-checkout and the celebrity auctions themselves. It’s likely to do even more good within the eBay community by driving home the message that buying on eBay is, essentially, a green consumer behavior.
That’s not bad for a marketing campaign, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the larger engine for social good inside eBay: The GivingWorks program. Last year, GW raised more than $55 Million for nonprofits around the globe. I’d like to see future campaigns focus on the different ways consumers can use the eBay platform for positive purpose. Buying green + dedicating a portion of purchase to charity (seller) + donating at checkout to a nonprofit (buyer) = a powerful combination for social good. To see how this all fits together go to the GivingWorks page dedicated to the campaign.
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Tags: 30 Days of Green, cause marketing, eBay, GivingWorks, Green Team, Hearst Corporation, The Nature Conservancy
Great post. I’m looking forward to more analysis of other programs in the future. I like the concept of centrally hosting these celebrity auctions at eBay. It will be interesting to see how they pan out.