9 of 10 Companies Have Charity Marketing Deals

By DEBRA E. BLUM

Two new surveys have found that about nine out of ten companies are working with charities in what may be termed joint marketing arrangements. The arrangements, often called cause-related marketing, include deals such as sponsorships, in which businesses pay for charity events in exchange for publicity.

The survey released by Cone, a communications company in Boston, and the Harvard Business School Social Marketing Task Force, included 211 companies, and was conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide. It found that 92 percent of businesses support a charitable cause, and that nearly all of those companies hope that their involvement will not only make a difference to a social issue, but also enhance employee loyalty and the reputation of the company.

Among the Cone survey’s other findings:

• When selecting a charity to support, companies consider, above all, an organization’s reputation. Other top considerations include the charity’s ability to carry out a cause-related program at the local level.
• When selecting an issue to align itself with, a company is most likely to put the concerns of its employees and the people who live in the communities where it is located above the concerns of consumers of its products and services.
• In most cases, the majority of the money to pay for cause-related programs comes from a company’s corporate-giving program or its company-related foundation. In some cases, however, most of the money comes from the community-relations or advertising departments.
• Nearly eight out of ten companies have increased their involvement with charities over the past five years, and about seven out of ten companies plan to increase their commitment in the future.

  By contrast, the other cause-related marketing survey found that most company officials do not believe that such arrangements between businesses and charities are on the upswing. That survey — sponsored by the Promotions Marketing Association, a trade organization in New York, and the Gable Group, a California communications company — found that while nearly all charity officials expect an increase in the number and depth of cause-related marketing arrangements over the next two to three years, only one out of three corporate officials expect such an increase.

  The survey included 25 corporate executives who are members of the marketing association and 25 leaders of non-profit groups.

  Part of the reason for the disparate predictions between the corporate and charity officials may be the present level of participation in cause-related marketing among the survey’s respondents. While 85 percent of the corporate respondents said they already participate in cause-related arrangements, only 65 percent of the charity respondents said they were already involved.

  Charities that do work with businesses, however, have participated in many more cause-related events –an average of 16 over two years –than have the companies, which took part in an average of about two events during the same time period.

  Corporations and non-profit groups differed on another topic, too: the use of the Internet to promote cause-related programs. Twenty-one of the 25 charity officials said they used their organization’s Web site to publicize a cause program. Fewer than half the corporate officials said cause programs were mentioned on company Web sites.

  For more information about the Cone survey, contact Anne Chan, at Cone Inc., 90 Canal Street, Boston 02114; (617) 227-2111, ext. 8403; achan@coneinc.com.

  A summary of the PMA/Gable Group Cause Marketing Survey is available on the association’s Web site at http://www.pmalink.org; or call (212) 420-1100 for more information.