Don’t Let Your Partner Retailer Hijack Your Campaign

I spotted the above two cause marketing campaigns from two charities on Facebook on the same day a few days ago. Without naming them, what do you think about these two appeals? Taking everything equal, which one will you support, why?

Instead of telling you what my choice is, let's examine and compare the two posts to identify the differences between them.

When I first spotted the one on the left-hand side, my instant impression was that are they serious about making it complicated to donate by applying a minimum purchase amount. Recalling one of my previous posts Fundraising Event is for FUN where I stressed one of the important concerns of organizing a fundraising event is to make it as simple as possible for prospects to support, cause marketing campaign is a kind of fundraising event. I understand that retailers would prefer to have a guaranteed sale return, but as the charity who owns the campaign, it is our responsibility in safeguarding our campaign to make sure it is easy to understand and donors-friendly with low or no entry barrier. Don't let the partner retailer hijack our good cause or the campaign that they take advantage of our name for their sales promotion.

Another tricky item I noticed is that there was no mentioning of how much would be donated per sales. This is a very important piece of transparent information for donors to justify their generosity. There were media reports a few years back which revealed that a number of retailers donated an extreme minimal per cent of their sales to the beneficiary organizations through their respective cause marketing campaigns, which amounts for a donation of approximately fifty cents out of a few hundred dollars they made per transaction. How would you comment about such scenarios?

The other likely question is how much donation and the number of donations it will generate through this campaign. As shown on the photo, only those provided the specific code will be ‘qualified’ for the campaign. Consider that online sales for luxury items has yet to become a mainstream in Hong Kong, the overall sales activities on the company’s online platform might not be as active as in the West in general, and it further excluding the majority transactions from this campaign by applying the enter the code rule will no doubt lowering the number of eligible sales to an unacceptable low level from the fundraising perspective.

Last but not least, the fundraising target of merely HK$8,000 is yet one more issue bothered me. Consider that's a minimal sum of money relatively, prospects might suspicious of how much could be done with such a small amount, or worse they would query the overall financial health of the organization which has to fundraise publicly for such a little amount of money.

In contrast, the campaign as shown on the right-hand side does a better job on all the mentioned issues comparatively. Rather than applying a minimum purchase amount, it offers a 10 per cent discount to shoppers as an invitation while a donation of 10% of sales during the campaign period was stated distinctly.

So, is it clear how you should structure and negotiate your next cause marketing campaign?