"There's no such thing as free lunch"

As Milton Friedman had famously said “There's no such thing as a free lunch”, one would wonder why a business driven by profit motives would do cause marketing at all? Why would Yoplait donate 10 cents to Susan G. Komen for the Cure for every pink lid turned in by the consumers? Why would Home Depot employees volunteer to construct a playground in a day? Aren’t we talking about big corporates whose goal is to do more business and make more profits?

With increasing number of people interested in associating with a company that is giving back to the society in some way or other, cause marketing has become an important strategic move for businesses. And it works for the companies too. What’s better than getting some free media attention and also generating greater awareness for your brand? It also helps in differentiating your brand from that of your competitors, hence attracting new customers as well as retaining the existing ones. Cause marketing also makes the employees proud to be a part of the organization leading to more retention.

One of the more famous cause marketing campaigns in India was the TATA Tea’s ‘Jaago Re’ (meaning wake up) campaign. The campaign launched in 2008-09 aimed at encouraging people, especially the youth to exercise their voting rights by registering to vote. The mission was “to register everyone in India to vote in the next 5 years, for better governance”.Targeting the top 35 cities, a website was launched where people can look up for voter registration information and also fill out and submit voter registration forms online. The campaign was successful in registering around a million voters through their online portal. In fact the campaign was such a huge hit that it was followed by another “Jaago Re” campaign against corruption.