In this world of information, people have now become knowledgeable about the business practices that were once hidden. As per one of the studies, it was revealed that 80% of consumers say that businesses must play a role in addressing societal issues. In this article, we will be covering some of the Best Cause Marketing Campaigns in India
What is Cause Marketing
Cause marketing is mainly marketing which is done by a for-profit organization that pursues to both increase profits as well as to enhance the society in line with corporate social responsibility like by including activist messages in advertising.
The principles of cause marketing mainly mean to align a brand with a cause to produce profits as well as societal benefits for both parties. The mutual benefits can include the making of social value, increased connection with the public, profit as well as communication of shared value.
Cause marketing indulges collaborative effort between a for-profit brand as well as a non-profit organization for mutual benefit. Different companies often pair up with social causes to create a meaningful impact, but most of the companies to do this to drive authentic consumer engagement as well as brand building.
What is social cause marketing
The emergence of social media has turned out to be a fruitful platform for raising awareness on social causes and also helping to gain consumer trust points as well as participation.
Consumers today have become the smartest. They can easily make canny choices about what brand they want to buy from depending upon the kind of brand image as well as identity.
Cause Related Marketing Campaigns in India
Below stated are some of the best cause marketing examples in India that is making a great impact on society:
1 Vistara #FlyTheNewFeeling
Vistara is the joint venture of an airline from Tata Group as well as Singapore Airlines. It has partnered with Salaam Baalak’s trust which is a non-profit, as well as a non-governmental organization, is providing support to street children of Delhi and Mumbai to fly 12 kids on its first flight ever.
The kids that were aged between 7 to 12 years were boarded first with other passengers and their absolute joy of flying for the first time which was captured in a two-minute film titled, “When little feet found their wings with Vistara# FlyTheNewFeeling”.
2 Johnson Tiles ‘Red Ramp Project’
Bath tile maker, Johnson Tiles always wanted to sensitize the Indian society towards making public places disable-friendly. With over ten million physically challenged people who can’t go to the beach, temple, church, airport as well as malls, there arose a need to exhibit how the country’s public spaces required to be made disable-friendly.
Johnson Tiles launched the Red Ramp Project where a ramp was built on Kiri beach in Goa. Since the disabled people could now visit the beach via the tiled ramp as well as feel the waters lapping their feet.
A campaign video was created which showed three protagonists who had varying physical challenges. The film showed how this ramp helped them fulfill their long-awaited dream- to visit the beach.
3 Dark is beautiful
Women of Worth launched the Dark is Beautiful campaign in India because such a campaign was required more than anything else. Country’s deep-seated history of belief that continues the myth that light-skinned girls are beautiful and darker girls are not.
Constantly in India, it is told that dark girls are not beautiful and cannot be. The Dark is Beautiful campaign is specially made to throw off such narrow standards of beauty as well as adopt the fact that dark is beautiful too.
The campaign directly discourages the dusky girls from using fairness products and holds their own true colours. Therefore, the main motive of this campaign is to celebrate the fact that beauty can come in any colour.
5 Tata Tea’s Jago Re
Jaago Re has been the clear call of a lot of Tata Tea advertising initiatives from the year 2009. But the object of Jaago Re has been changed through the years.
The very first reminder of this campaign was for the country’s citizenry in order to assert their political franchise, vote as well as elect their leaders who would be accountable to them in the process of governance.
But later the campaigns have rolled out the message about anti-bribery, spreading of knowledge in a simplified form as well as Choti shuruaat for the empowerment of women.
6 Mahindra# SeeedTheRise
This October, Mahindra & Mahindra commenced a huge digitally-driven crowd-funding campaign to enhance the lives of farmers. SeedTheRise got donations streaming in through digital amounting to INR 1 crore.
Now this money will be utilized for farmer welfare through five carefully hand-picked projects in collaboration with Four NGOs. All the projects have been made to assist enhance the lives of farmers as well as their families in different ways like giving alternative forms of livelihood, educating farmer’s daughters as well as assisting them with agricultural advancements.
7 Lifebuoy’s Help a child reach 5
Preventable infections like diarrhea as well as pneumonia in India kill over 1.3 million children every year before they reach the age of five. Sadly, most of these infants and children are from rural as well as semi-rural regions and low-income families.
This means that their mothers who are also often their primary babysitters have less awareness about how the simplest little acts can help to stop the infections in the first place.
Lifebuoy encouraged the benefits of handwashing as well also widely publicized hand hygiene information in rural areas.
130 million people have been trained to have better hand hygiene already via the help a child reach 5 programs, as well as many of these, are parents of children who were at risk but now are completely protected.
8 EducateTheGirlChild by Nestle
Consumer goods magnate Nestle set foot into one of the partnerships with Mumbai-based education reform non-profit Nanhi Kali in late 2016 in order to Educate the Girl Child in a long term project of the same name.
Nanhi Kali has also worked before for many years in order to improve opportunities for Indian girls from low-income as well as otherwise disadvantaged families to avail opportunities for education.
9 Nivea India Mom’s Touch
Skincare brand, Nivea India has been successful in touching the heart with its recent social initiative #MomsTouch which has brought up forth stories of extraordinary mothers.
Nivea has also partnered with Aseema Charitable Trust which is an organization dedicated to giving quality education to children from marginalized communities.
Nivea contributed 100 grams of rice, each time one shared the film. Mom’s touch has helped Nivea to strike the right chord with its consumers and has also given them an incentive for social sharing.
10 KFC plate of Hope
Fast food biggie has started the initiative to join the fight against hunger in India since the year 2016. Those who bring food from KFC through an online order can help in contributing to making a virtual plate of food on the KFC website, helping to feed one hungry mouth somewhere across the country.
The digitally conducted as well as promoted project aimed to send food to almost 20 million hungry people with children as well as vulnerable women on priority.
Therefore, the Soar with Reading program is mainly created to inspire as well as encourage children’s imaginations.
Benefits of Cause Marketing
Cause marketing involves increasing exposure as well as awareness for both for-profit businesses and non-profit organizations. When cause marketing is effective, it offers immense benefits like:
- An enlargement in brand loyalty
- Boost up in employee morale
- Growth in sales
- Company reviews as well as positive press coverage
- Distinction from the competition
One of the most biggest possible benefits is a more favorable public name. As per the studies, it was revealed that most of the consumers say they are ready to switch from one brand to another if the other brand were linked with a good cause.
Cause marketing completely differs from corporate philanthropy, as corporate philanthropy is the latter which indulges a specific donation that is tax-deductible. But the cause marketing is one of the promotional campaigns that are not necessarily based on a donation.
Five Strapping Cause Related Marketing Examples
There is certainly no shortage of social problems in urgent need of solutions and cause-based marketing campaigns have been diverse as their profit-driven counterparts. Below stated are some of the examples of well-executed cause-based marketing campaigns that help to serve as a little creative inspiration for your own cause-based campaigns.
1 Movember
Every year in November, millions of men around the world come together in order to champion the noblest of causes for raising awareness of serious health issues facing men by refusing to shave their upper lips.
This curious phenomenon has now turned a highly popular annual tradition known as Movember.
From the year 2017, more than five million men took part in Movember in order to raise awareness for a range of health issues right from prostate cancer to suicide. This movement has resulted in the formation of the Movember Foundation which is a charitable organization that works with different men’s health advocacy groups around the world as well as aims to lower premature deaths among men by 25% by 2030.
2 Women’s March
The organizers of the Women’s March were smart enough to realize very early on that strong as well as unified branding would be crucial to the success of the event.
In turn, this has helped the Women’s March to make the difficult transition from loosely affiliated groups of people organizing in the same place to a cohesive and strategic event right from domestic abuse prevention to women’s reproductive rights.
3 Feeding America
In spite of being among the world’s wealthiest nations, America has the highest rates of child poverty in the world. According to a study, it was revealed that approximately one in five American children lives in poverty and few dimensions of poverty are as devastating or potentially deadly as hunger.
Feeding America has turned out to be the most active non-profit organizations in the U.S. and is known for working timelessly to end food insecurity across America’s most vulnerable as well as impoverished communities.
It is said that there are more than 46 million people who rely on Feeding America programs as well as food banks in order to make ends meet, while more than 200 food banks, as well as 60,000 food pantries, are known to make up the Feeding America network which serves one in seven Americans, every year.
4 WWF
The World Wildlife Foundation is the most dedicated conservation organization in the world. Though WWF is well known for its advocacy work in protecting endangered species from extinction, the organization is also known to be active in the field of habitat conservation.
WWF has also introduced hundreds of cause-based marketing campaigns over the years but a current campaign spotlighting the urgent dangers of rainforest deforestation was particularly memorable.
This campaign is an outstanding example of the power of strong visual assets, highlighting one of the potential pitfalls of cause-based campaigns, mainly the lack of a specific call to action.
Summary
From all the above-stated examples it is clearly visible that cause-based marketing campaigns are one of the perfect ways of raising awareness for crucial causes across a range of interest areas. Though they may be more difficult to track in terms of performance or impact, there has never been a greater demand for cause-based marketing.
Therefore, cause marketing has now become a norm. Customers visiting your website, or watching your social media activities can see that your brand stands for certain principles. This establishes your brand as approachable and inspires a sense of community among your target audience.
Cause marketing, when done right, can be a strong factor in building a brand community. It is always good to stand for something- not only does it establish your brand values, it helps your audience connect better with you.
