I’m curious what you think about this cause marketing program between Urban Outfitters and National Public Radio.
As originally reported by Fast Company, Urban Outfitters offers a specially branded NPR tee on the public radio station’s website for $20. Profits support NPR. Nice cause marketing (purchased-triggered donation, by the way).
But the very same t-shirt is sold at Urban Outfitters’ website–and a similar version offline in stores–for $24 but NPR gets zilch.
You could argue that NPR benefits in a couple ways. First, NPR does receive money from the shirts sold on its own site. This is worth something as its site and online store are well trafficked by the rabid listeners of public radio. NPR doesn’t get anything from the same shirt sold at Urban Outfitters, but the awareness it gets from being on this hip tee may be worth something. Good luck putting a value on that.
But this program has a more defects than a tee marked irregular. Here’s the big one for me: it’s totally confusing for consumers. If a consumer buys the NPR tee on the Urban Outfitter site they’re probably thinking a portion of the purchase is supporting public radio.
Take this review of the tee on Urban Outfitters site.
I bought this for my dad, who loves NPR and had no idea where I had found it! (My secret.) It is super soft and looks great, but the fabric is very thin and it runs a tad large/baggy. Great gift for anyone who loves this radio station or cool music in general.
I wonder if she knew her purchase wasn’t supporting her Dad’s favorite radio station.
The essence of cause marketing is win-win. A win for the company. A win for the cause. Urban Outfitters is doing a good thing by supporting NPR on the public radio station’s site. But reaping the profit from the tee on their own site without supporting NPR is self-serving and even slimy. The verdict is in. No halo for Urban Outfitters.
The win for NPR is a partial one at best. You have to wonder how they felt about the same shirt being sold at Urban Outfitters with no donation. They might have thought that making some money from sales on their site was enough. I can’t disagree with their thinking, although in this case they may have sold themselves short.
I often argue that when it comes to cause marketing just about anything is better than nothing. But you have to wonder if Urban Outfitters is trying to get something for nothing, and NPR is letting them.
What to you think?
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Good post Joe!
Fodder for a piece I'm working on about the disconnect between some companies and some nonprofits regarding cause marketing.
If I read you correctly ("I wonder if she knew her purchase wasn’t supporting her Dad’s favorite radio station."), NPR is keeping all the funds it gets from its sales and providing none to the local stations? Correct.
And, yes, why did NPR agree to a program when the majority of sales (I presume UO's sales would be more than NPR's) revenues go to the company with no funds to NPR?
Are some nonprofits "rushing" to get cause dollars without due diligence?
Thanks, Joe. I agree it's confusing. To that end, a quick clarification question. I read the Fast Company article too and I'm not understanding the behind-the-scenes financial arrangement. Is UO paying NPR as a vendor for the product, and then UO is just keeping their retail profits? I understand they aren't getting a donation from UO, but is this really more of a branded merchandise play rather than a cause marketing one? Or is NPR really making $0 off the shirts baring their name? I haven't read much more about the deal yet, so just curious.
Good question, Diane. I've seen it work a couple ways. Sometimes items are provided in bulk to the nonprofit, they pay a reduced price for them and then sell them at market value and reap the profit. But a nonprofit has to be confident that the items indeed can be sold. My experience has been that the company sells the items to the nonprofit at such a steep discount it's pretty hard NOT to recoup the expense and turn a profit.
The second possibility is how this program probably works. There's a link between NPR's online store and UO so that when a shirt is purchased at NPR's store if has its own SKU # so UO can track how much they need to give to NPR. It's not unlike a simple pinup program in stores when a barcode helps track how many gifts were made to a cause.
For me, it is cause marketing because when the consumer buys the product it triggers a donation from the company (which I calle purchase-triggered donations and others call percentage-of-sale and cause products). If the program involved UO simply using NPR's logo on its tees it would still be cause marketing. But in this instance it would be a licensing agreement–if UO paid NPR to used its logo.
[...] out a great article on the NPR/Urban Outfitters gaffe at the Selfish Giving blog (a great source for info on cause marketing!). May 16, 2011 No [...]
Good idea – poor follow through on the full cycle touchpoints on this branded media / cause marketing match-up.
There are a number of creative, brand enhancing ways to still support NPR at the POS of the specialti items at Urban Outfitters.
Love to work on a follow-up post with you on ways to carry through the social cause marketing branded support campaign through all points of experience.
Thanks, Athena. Please come again!
I'm not even a novice when it comes to marketing and finance, but in this I observe something that was done by one of my previous employers. That employer would sell to wholesalers at the typical reduced price but some people still want to buy from the manufacturer. But at the same time the manufacturer prices the item higher offsite to direct traffic to the wholesale vendor. That UO does not donate to NPR for the purchases off-site is merely a simple attempt to recoup costs of selling at a loss; the wholesale price (or less) to NPR. The deal still seems to lean in favor of NPR, despite the higher price in the offsite sales locations.
[...] programs that may have had good intentions but didn’t have the intended effect. Consider the Urban Outfitters t-shirt that benefited National Public Radio. Sold online by both NPR and Urban Outfitters, only tees sold in the nonprofit’s online store [...]