The social cause marketing is a kind of affinity marketing that prominently and publicly identifies a company’s association with a particular social cause. These are company’s initiatives involving the provision of money, resources and/or publicity to socially beneficial causes in a way that seeks to create an association in the minds of consumers between the cause and the company or one of its brands.For example- the Tata Tea “ Jaago Re!” campaign. It is different from the conventional promotional campaigns in which the stress is simply on the benefits of buying a specific brand.
As we know every brand has a personality and reflects the organizational culture of the company. On promoting a social cause, the company sends a strong signal about the values and the culture of the organization. In this way, it creates a differentiation for itself from its competitors whose focus is on conventional promotional programs. By doing so, the company would attract those customers who feel for the cause and it gets a platform to connect to them emotionally and psychologically. This helps because next time the customer thinks of the social cause close to his heart, he would recall that there is this XYZ brand working for the cause and feels bonded to it. In this way, the brand attracts a new segment of customer and also increasing its visibility. As brand recall improves, there would be greater efficiency for other marketing efforts the company engages in.
The next advantage that social marketing gives is the building of reputation and goodwill of the brand in the long run. When the brand gets appreciation from those who acknowledge its social initiatives, there is a sense of pride that consumer would get in his association with the brand. This can simulate brand preference as all factors being same for two brands; one would prefer the brand promoting a good cause. Thus brand loyalty would increase improving the overall reputation in market and in corporate world. As the brand is strengthened, this gives it an ability to charge higher prices too.
At the same time, societal marketing activities are supposed to have helped many of the firms achieve better scores on ratings of the most admired and socially responsible companies. This would help them become more efficient in recruiting, retaining and engaging talented employees, since people may have more positive feelings about working for a socially responsible company. This will help curb attrition rate also.
Due to social cause marketing, the brand would get more favourable treatment from stakeholders such as regulators and investors. All these would ultimately lead to increase in market share, rise in revenues and stock prices. Thus we can see that by engaging in social cause marketing campaigns, companies will get higher returns and improve its brand equity.
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When it comes to social cause marketing, I think there is a distinction in the role it plays for a specific company from the one in plays for a particular product. In my view, it is more effective when used for an overarching entity like Tata, Apple or Intel rather than for a product like Tata Tea, Apple Ipod or Intel Centrino.
ReplyDeleteThe utility of the product should continue to be the centre piece in the marketing strategy. Firstly, advertising, besides building the brand and positioning it appropriately, is also a way to get information through to the consumer. This can be effectively done only when the product is the focus of the Advertisement.
Another caveat of using social cause marketing for a particular product might be consumer antipathy. Badly Managed campaigns can easily ignite the feeling that the company is using a a social cause for getting a foothold in a particular segment. Such feelings would be less piqued when the method is used for an overarching entity, tying the consumer to the values of the group.
‘Jaago Re’ is an interesting case. Though it is focused on a product, Tata Tea, the product is concern – Tea- has already been commoditized. Hence, out of the box thinking is necessary to grab eyeballs. Additionally, long standing commitment to Tata group to various causes adds to the credibility of the campaign.
Social Cause Marketing, in this new age, surely offers an effective way to connect with the consumers. But the key to success, as always, lie in the details. Proper implementation, clarity of vision and commitment to a cause will go a long way in making Social Cause networking a success.
I am trying to find out some more ideas to help market the software. What successful marketing campaigns are there those are related to the creative media industry?
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