Ad Sales: For the Good Of the Cause: Partnering with charitable groups that link your brand with socially conscious issues is a powerful way to polish your image, build consumer support, and bolster the bottom line

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec 1, 2001 by David Hessekiel

With images of ground zero still fresh in our minds and the military effort underway, consumers want reassurance that there is still goodness in the world. Magazine publishers can respond to this need with marketing that links a company or brand to a social issue or charity--think Campbell's Soup and schools or Avon and breast cancer. It's a powerful way to build consumer support--and price and quality being equal, studies show that most of us prefer to buy from businesses that give back.

Whatever your magazine's size or focus, there are cause-related strategies that can burnish its reputation and, at the same time, build its bottom line. Here are five categories of cause-related initiatives that are most effective in the magazine industry:

1. MULTI-SPONSOR SPECIAL SECTIONS. Reader's Digest has this down to a science. Every year since 1995, it has published a major advertiser-supported section highlighting a group supported by The Ad Council. The August 2001 edition, for example, focused on Do Something, a nonprofit promoting youth volunteerism. The section attracted 17 ad pages, much of it public affairs messaging from companies such as Johnson & Johnson, GE and Anheuser-Busch. The program has been so successful that Reader's Digest has cumulatively donated $42 million in media value and $1 million in cash to The Ad Council, says Bill Cort, who managed the program as the magazine's associate director of creative services for six years.

2. SINGLE-SPONSOR SPECIAL SECTIONS. Partnering a nonprofit with a company that is willing to underwrite a special section can be especially beneficial to the magazine that makes the match. For example, Working Mother paired General Motors with Mothers Against Drunk Driving for a sponsorship of "Alcohol and Your Kids," an eight-page section in the magazine, says Delia Passi Smalter, the magazine's former publisher.

3. EVENT-DRIVEN SPECIAL ISSUES. Sponsoring event-related causes can serve as ad sales catalysts. A popular approach in the shelter category is to create a theme house or showcase filled with advertisers' products and donate a portion of admission fees. Country Home, for example, has developed five such projects since 1996 and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities, says Frank Vitale, associate publisher/group marketing director for Country Home and several other Meredith titles.

Conferences also present opportunities. In response to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Working Mother changed the theme of its annual show, WorkLife Congress, to "Employees in Crisis" and packaged the results as an advertiser-supported section to appear in its December issue. The magazine will donate a portion of ad revenue to charities assisting children who lost parents in the tragedy, says Working Mother Media president and CEO Carol Evans.

4. ADDED-VALUE OPPORTUNITIES. Smaller cause-related marketing programs can also strengthen advertiser relationships. Entertainment Weekly ties in with many nonprofit groups to produce added-value opportunities, according to Fred Nelson, associate publisher/marketing. EW arranged for Canon to give celebrities digital cameras to take pictures that were featured in the magazine's October 5 "Photo Issue" and also sold online to raise money for Project ALS, which seeks a cure for Lou Gehrig's disease. Canon benefited from mentions in the magazine and on the EW Web site.

5. EDITORIAL ALLIANCES. Editorial coverage of nonprofits can raise a magazine's stature in a way that builds business. In its September and October 2001 issues, the editors of Ladies' Home Journal published women's - health resource sections in conjunction with the Partnership for Women's Health at Columbia University and the National Institutes of Health. The prestige of such partnerships has helped Ladies' Home Journal expand its share of pharmaceutical advertising, says publisher Dan Lagani.

FINDING A CAUSE

Cause-related marketing campaigns require careful planning. In this tough environment, there are strong bottom-line reasons to invest time on smart cause-related programs: They can provide the glue that helps cement advertiser relationships. But these projects "are not just about the money," emphasizes marketing consultant Passi Smalter. "It's about putting people together so everyone benefits: publishers, magazines, causes, readers and clients." When considering your options, keep the following best practices in mind:

Study the causes your advertisers support. You can reduce the considerable challenge of selling big-ticket programs if you pitch concepts involving a prospect's favored charities. Country Home, for example, partners with charities like Habitat for Humanity that are already popular with many of its endemic advertisers.

Assign cause-related projects to senior staff who can take the long view. Big packages are sold predominantly on the senior client level and often take at least a year to bring to fruition. Be sure, of course, to keep the agency in the loop.