Sustainability & Brand Marketing - part 3

3 - Cause marketing and brand activism: mutually beneficial for a brand and for a cause – if done right.

This report provides beauty marketers with strategic frameworks, concrete tools and illustrative examples to improve the efficiency and relevancy of sustainable marketing claims by connecting them with what the brand stands for.

Conversely, it also highlights that what the brand stands for should increasingly integrate the sustainability imperative.

1 - Brand purpose: connected yet not the same as sustainability.
2 - Brand equity: the reciprocal contributions between sustainability claims and brand value.
3 - Cause marketing and brand activism: mutually beneficial for a brand and for a cause – if done right.

part 3 - Cause marketing and brand activism: mutually beneficial for a brand and for a cause – if done right.

Brands are now expected to share what they stand up for, beyond what they stand for

Although CSR has been grounded within business operations, recently, the stakes have gotten a lot higher. Companies / brands are increasingly expected to join or create a movement.

Ex. Launched in March 2020 in partnership with the NGO Right To Be (formerly Hollaback!), L'Oréal Paris' Stand Up Against Street Harassment global initiative has provided training on how to safely intervene in instances of street harassment with Right To Be's 5Ds methodology. L'Oréal Paris has accelerated its commitment to combating street harassment by aiming to train 1.5 million people by the end of the year 2022.

What is cause marketing?

Cause Marketing is a type of Marketing initiative, crossed with Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Relations, in which a company’s promotional campaign has the dual purpose of increasing its sales and image while bettering society.

It often involves the cooperative efforts of a for-profit business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit.

While there are differences in where the terms originated, the definition of “cause marketing” is the same as “cause-related marketing” which originated in the 1980’s.

While “You buy. We’ll give” cause marketing campaigns remain popular (and can even be a business model, Toms Shoes* , Who Gives a Crap), there are other forms of cause marketing which are not triggered by a purchase.

For ex: Tom Shoes gave a pair of shoes to a child in need for every post to Instagram of a barefoot photo accompanied by the hashtag #WithoutShoes.

“One Day Without Shoes” still is a national US day (May 10th).

*In 2007 Toms Shoes launched on a one for one donation model. Since 2019 Toms has gone from donating shoes to donating profits.