Cause marketing in Australia – few examples come to mind

Cause-related marketing is quite popular in the United States. Examples that come to my mind include the ability to add a donation to my grocery bill at a supermarket chain, corporate contributions to a cancer-related charity when a Boston Red Sox player hits a home run, and a big global bank offering free admission to museumgoers on Mondays of each week. If pressed, I could likely come up with, or surface, hundreds of examples from Boston where I lived prior to moving to Sydney six years ago. Other examples come to mind having travelled to the United Kingdom for business, including the ability to add a charitable contribution to my airline transaction on British Airways’ website.

I recently flew from Sydney to Johannesburg South Africa and saw a shining example of cause related marketing, which many of you would have seen prior. Qantas encourages all flyers to give their loose change to UNICEF through its long-standing campaign, Change for Good. Previously, the campaign suggested any loose change and now Qantas has taken this campaign further than in years prior. Qantas now suggests passengers give $6 to provide three 10 litre collapsible water containers, helping communities transport and store their safe water. Other options were also suggested on the overhead announcements. Additionally, the giving envelope also suggests giving your credit card or enclosing a cheque to make a gift. Finally, the giving envelope asks people over 18 to give their name and email address to keep updated on UNICEF’s work.

The Qantas/UNICEF campaign is likely the most visible cause-related marketing effort in Australia. Are there other cause related marketing campaigns in Australia that are of equal value? If so, why don’t they come to mind?

I am not sure how much revenue the Qantas/UNICEF cause marketing campaign has raised in its 21 years of running. But, the visibility Qantas has provided to UNICEF likely is worth gold and it must have translated into good revenue for the charity over time.