Nada Dugas of Procter & Gamble and I have accepted an invitation to present the Pampers/UNICEF campaign at the Cause Marketing Forum in Chicago on May 31. This conference, an annual gathering of industry professionals and not-for-profit managers, will celebrate its tenth anniversary this year. The Cause Marketing organization provides distance learning, news feeds, and research reports to professionals and citizens interested in this important stream of market engagement.
I was interested, for instance, to learn from the Cause Marketing site that the total of cause marketing spending had grown from $1.68 billion in 2011 to $1.73 billion in 2012. This increase is happening in spite of economic uncertainty in the West. I am sure there is a link between this continued spending and the Occupy Wall Street protests (and similar initiatives) that have spanned the world from New York to China. Even so, it is encouraging to see cause marketing showing continued strength. I believe that learning to harness capitalism for the good of all is key to our future. The moral downturn of the world economy, as discussed recently by Jeffrey Sachs, is in great need of a counterbalancing trend.
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