Case Study Directory, by Tactics: Product-Cause Fit
Product-Cause Fit occurs when consumers perceive a natural association between a cause and a company’s products, services, or mission. For instance, it would be natural for a pet store to host stray-adoption events. Similarly, it would be natural for an auto insurance company to promote free safe-driving resources for teenage drivers.
This Product-Cause Fit case study shows how American Greetings (the world’s largest greeting card producer) launched its #ThankList campaign to promote expressing gratitude.
Aqua Carpatica created a water purity test so that Romanians could self-test water quality for nitrates. Results publicly disclosed water quality problems.
Becel sought to reduce heart disease (and promote Becel margarine) via an emotional message that mothers wouldn’t tune out. Becel appealed to moms with ‘love letters’ from their own children.
Rather than compete on price, Canadian Tire used #ShovelItForward cause marketing to create store preference for low-involvement winter products (e.g., snow shovels, ice scrapers) which otherwise have low emotional resonance. In so doing, Canadian Tire positioned itself as “Canada’s Winter Store.”
CVS Health was the first national pharmacy chain to stop selling cigarettes, replacing them with ‘The Last Pack’: a step-by-step guide to quit smoking.
Elefant, Romania’s biggest online bookseller, used Cause Marketing to encourage readers to reduce the destruction of forests by reading books digitally (concurrently promoting Elefant’s e-books). The ‘Read a Tree’ campaign generated 1.6 million euros of earned media.
KFC’s ‘Add Hope’ campaign collects donations in-store to fund meals for undernourished children. Consumers say that they’re more likely to buy from KFC because of Add Hope, which contributes to KFC being voted a top brand in South Africa (where the Add Hope campaign started).
As part of KFC’s “Add Hope” donation-collection campaign, KFC teamed with adventurer Riaan Manser for a Journey of Hope. KFC sought to increase awareness of the crippling effect of hunger on South Africa’s children (while increasing consumer walk-in traffic to KFC’s stores).
