Too Much Gas Fouls Nature Valley Cause Campaign
I’m all for cheering on a good cause marketing campaign, but it needs to feel genuine, believable, not just a half-baked attempt to attach the brand to the latest feel good cause so consumers think the company really cares.
I came across a print ad in National Geographic magazine for Nature Valley that asks customers to help raise up to $400,000 this summer to help fund a number of National Park Conservation Association projects, including restoring coral reefs in Biscayne National Park in Florida, freeing Pronghorn migration in Yellowstone National Park and sustaining national plant life in the Grand Canyon.
Now comes the silly part. Nature Valley says it will donate 10 cents for every granola bar wrapper a consumer mails in. Ten cents. By the time people put the wrapper in an envelope, add a postage stamp and drive it to the post office any financial help for the coral reefs will be wiped out by the amount of gasoline used just to get the wrapper to the post office. I know, some people will save up all their wrappers and mail them all at once, but still. This just comes across as disingenuous and online commentators (those influential consumers) are having a field day with this one.
Here’s just a sample of some of the comments floating around cyberspace:
“I’ve got 6 wrappers at my desk. If only I could change them into dimes for the vending machine.”
“Ha! My friends and I realized the same thing about the new green Sprite cans and their pop tab campaign. It really is a big WTF moment.”
“Come on man, the P.O. needs the money”
And those were some of the tamer comments. Why wouldn’t General Mills, the maker of Nature Valley, just go ahead and donate the money and promote that. Dawn is donating $1 to the BP cleanup in the Gulf for every bottle of dish soap sold, a disaster that has worried and affected people across the country. And by now many people are aware that Dawn is used to wash the oil from birds and other wildlife coated by the oil. That’s a feel good promotion. Many people standing at the retail shelf will switch to Dawn to help out the cleanup efforts and go on to become lifelong users.
The Nature Valley campaign has gotten particularly harsh criticism because the cause is supposed to be benefiting the environment, not using up more of our environmental resources.
The brand may have tried to tap into the long-running success Yoplait has had with its promotion where customers mail in lids to benefit Susan B. Komen for the Cure. That campaign fires up strong emotions that affect millions and millions of cancer patients and their friends and families and can’t be easily transplanted to other causes like worrying about Pronghorn migration.
Nature Valley should heed the mud being thrown at it and brainstorm a better way to raise funds for what it says it really cares about.
July 13th, 2010 at 9:35 am
In Canada, Quaker Oats has this great promotion with some of its products where you receive Aeroplan miles (Air Canada loyalty program) for each purchase. You go to a Web site (www.breakfastcentral.ca), enter your Aeroplan # and last name for verification, then a special PIN printed on the product. The Web site provides instant verification that you entered the PIN correctly, and shows you the total miles you’ve collected from this promotion.
July 13th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Read something similar, but with a different take, on IEG’s blog: http://bit.ly/cHa6e7
Also, your headline should say “Too” not “To”