Tag Archives: TOMS Shoes

To Tap Cause Marketing’s Huge Potential, Do Less Of It

This piece was originally written for and published on Reach Students. If 94% of Millennials condone cause marketing why do only 53% report buying a product that benefits a cause in the past year?  The first finding is compelling, the second certainly is not, particularly given that in many stores you’d have to struggle not to buy […]

Retail Philanthropy Is In High Demand: 4 Steps To Doing It Right

Neither nationwide purse-tightening nor cries of Slactivism! Greenwashing! and Fad! have shaken cause marketing. Eighty-three percent of consumers “want more of the products, services and retailers they use to benefit causes,” according to Cone Inc.’s 2010 Cause Evaluation Study. But how do you do cause-related marketing (or cause branding) right? Pick a cause you care about. […]

Altruism May Be a Company’s Best Bet to Keep Customers Coming

If you give me an easy opportunity to do something good when I’m buying your product or even after I’ve taken it home, I’ll think better of you and I’ll likely share my positive feeling with the next person I come in contact with.  I like to do good things. If your store gives me the […]

Can AT&T Count Its TOMS Shoes Commercial as CSR?

AT&T’s commercial featuring TOMS Shoes was so publicly enjoyed that AT&T introduced a 60-second version of its 30-second spot. The commercial profiles TOMS Shoes–a for-profit company that donates one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased–and founder Blake Mycoskie who uses his AT&T Blackberry to conduct business from around the […]

5 Ways to Create a Socially Responsible & Profitable Company

Recently, I had the opportunity to proselytize socially beneficial business models to a crowd of upstart entrepreneurs with varying levels of interest in social responsibility. I spoke with upstart entrepreneurs about five ways they can incorporate cause into their business, regardless of its size. Although the methods range in their levels of commitment and implementation […]

Buy a House, Give a House through LJ Urban

It requires a double-take. The buy-one-give-one practice now includes houses. California eco-design firm LJ Urban constructed an eco community of 35 LEED ND Certified homes in an urban pocket of Sacramento. It’s aptly named Good. For every house sold, LJ Urban pays for the training of a local mason to build sustainable domiciles in Burkina […]

TOMS Shoes Can Draw a Crowd

A good cause – and party – is hard to ignore. I am glowing after meeting so many innovative and socially compassionate people at last night’s fundraiser for Friends of TOMS, the action and fundraising arm for TOMS Shoes. We packed the Buffalo Club with a dynamic crowd of do-gooders and fashionistas. TechZulu was on […]

The BOGO Business

There’s a slow sprouting of Buy-One-Give-One businesses, where, for every product a consumer purchases, an identical product is donated to a person in need. We have Nick Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child, TOMS Shoes and, my latest discovery, the BOGO Light by SunNight Solar. The BOGO Light generates clean LED light from rechargeable solar-powered batteries. […]

Can Corporations Replace Philanthropies?

Will philanthropy be displaced by business? Marc Benioff, of Salesforce.com and Compassionate Capitalism, wrote a great piece on how to bridge the disconnect between corporate profits and cause.  He argues that socially responsibly initiatives are created in isolation from the corporate mission. An ‘integrated corporation’ creates value in its local community or global network as […]