Unless you’ve been living in a cave the past few days, you probably know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and that just about every company is selling pink products.
Most of these companies are new to supporting breast cancer research. If they’re johnny-come-latelies, the Johnny Appleseed is Lee Jeans.
For 12 years, Lee Jeans has sponsored Lee National Denim Day, which had over a million participants last year and has raised $66 million since 1996.
The program is simple. Donate five bucks and you get to swap your business clothes for your favorite jeans. Lee National Denim Day is this Friday, but you can choose any day to hold your own event. Lee has lots of helpful materials and downloads at its site to help plan your Denim Day.
The money you and your co-workers raise will fund groundbreaking breast cancer research like the Breast Cancer Biomarker Discovery Project - an ambitious, groundbreaking scientific project where a group of internationally recognized scientists and clinicians from some of the best scientific institutions in the world are collaborating to develop a blood test that will detect breast cancer in its beginning stages, when survival rates are highest.
There’s another way to help. If you plan to shop for those special jeans this week, Lee.com is donating $5 to breast cancer research for every denim order.
Be the Johnny Appleseed at your company and organize a Denim Day to raise money for breast cancer research. Jeans are the perfect clothes for planting seeds of hope.
Comments
Thanks for the post Joe. This program continues to surprise and delight us in its success. We raised $5 million this year and the bulk of that is going to the research you described. The rest goes to the National Breast Cancer Coalition that arguably does the best advocacy job on behalf of breast cancer with government officials.
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I’m disappointed. With a name like “selfish giving” I thought you would be critical of cause marketing.
Go to this post on my blog to see what women with cancer think of the whole pink ribbon cause-marketing campaign:
We HATE Pink!
http://www.assertivepatient.com/2007/10/we-hate-pink-1.html
And then think again.
Jeanne
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Jeanne, I love cause marketing! Sorry, I won’t be revisiting my position. Sure, cause marketing has flaws, but advocates like you will make the practice better. So keep at it! I’ve always said the truth lies somewhere in between.
That said, cause marketing certainly does more good than harm. Save the “evil empire” moniker for the pharma companies! While companies certainly benefit from going “pink” for October, believe me, they don’t get as much as you think. It’s just another thing they do to sell muffins, pens and soup. Lighten up.
Joe
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Are there specific businesses that are more prone to cause marketing that other businesses? (i.e. grocery stores, Realtors)
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