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2008 Cause Marketing Halo Award Winners

Click on a Category for program descriptions.
  • The 2008 Cause Marketing Golden Halo Award Winners
    • McDonald's
    • St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
  • Campaign Awards
    • BEST TRANSACTIONAL CAMPAIGN
      • GOLD: Heroes at Home, Sears Holdings Co. and Rebuilding Together
      • SILVER: Crate & Barrel’s Distribution of DonorsChoose.org Gift Certificates, Crate and Barrel and Donor’s Choose.org
    • BEST HEALTH CAMPAIGN
      • GOLD: Skin Cancer Takes Friends: Protect and Love the Skin You’re In, Procter & Gamble’s Olay and the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery
      • SILVER: Albertsons Healthy Eaters, SUPERVALU Albertsons and elementary schools in seven western states
    • BEST ENVIRONMENTAL/WILDLIFE CAMPAIGN
      • GOLD: Chase The Extraordinary, InterContinental Hotels Group
      • SILVER: Save Our Selves, Esurance and Live Earth.
    • BEST SOCIAL SERVICE/EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
      • GOLD: The Game Show Network’s National Vocabulary Championship, The Game Show Network, several educational organizations including the National Association of Secondary School Principals and 700 high schools nationwide
      • SILVER: State Farm’s 50 Million Pound Challenge, State Farm Insurance
    • BEST EVENT
      • GOLD: Live Earth, Live Earth, numerous media and marketing partners and the Alliance for Climate Protection
      • SILVER: A Day Made Better, OfficeMax and Adopt-A-Classroom
    • BEST JOINT MESSAGE PROMOTION:
      • GOLD: Destination Joy presented by Lays, Frito-Lay and Make A Wish Foundation of America
      • SILVER: Save Our Selves, Esurance and Live Earth
    • BEST PRINT CREATIVE
      • GOLD: Gifts for Greater Good, Target, The Salvation Army and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
      • SILVER: Pedigree Adoption Drive, Pedigree and numerous animal shelters
    • BEST NATIONAL/LOCAL INTEGRATION
      • GOLD: The Warm Coats & Warm Hearts Drive, ABC News’ “Good Morning America”, Burlington Coat Factory and One Warm Coat
      • SILVER: Lets All Play…It Matters, Hasbro and Boundless Playgrounds

The 2008 Cause Marketing Golden Halo Award Winners

Each year, the Cause Marketing Forum recognizes one business and one nonprofit organization for their leadership and outstanding efforts in the field of cause marketing. Our 2008 winners are::

McDonald's

McDonald’s commitment to being a good neighbor has been a fundamental part of its business for more than 50 years. Its disaster relief, employment opportunities and environmental efforts are grounded in founder Ray Kroc’s heritage of giving back to the communities McDonald’s serves. McDonald’s has supported Ronald McDonald House Charities’ work to improve the health and well-being of children since 1974. That alliance, which encompasses numerous initiatives and involves everyone from top company executives to franchisees and hourly workers, may be the world’s best-known cause-related signature program. World Children’s Day, its largest annual fundraiser, has enabled McDonald’s to raise more than $100 million since 2002 for RMHC and other children’s charities.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Since 1962, corporate alliances have raised tens of millions of dollars for this premier center for the treatment of catastrophic diseases in children. One of the most successful annual group events in cause marketing history is St. Jude’s 4-year-old Thanks and Giving campaign, which in the days following Thanksgiving raises money through consumer donations at checkout and the sale of specialty merchandise. In 2007, about 50 partner companies participated in Thanks and Giving. The St. Jude staff creates customized programs with many of its corporate partners. In 2007, for example, the fifth annual Create-a-Pepper to Fight Childhood Cancer campaign sponsored by Chili’s Grill & Bar, generated $8.2 million from customer and company donations. Like so many St. Jude partners, Chili’s has made a long-term commitment to St. Jude: It has a 10-year goal of raising $50 million.

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Campaign Awards

An interdisciplinary judging panel selected winners on the basis of conceptual strength, execution, business results and cause results of campaigns that ran in whole or in part in 2007.

Best Transactional Campaign

Gold: Heroes at Home, Sears Holdings Co. and Rebuilding Together

Sears developed this program to provide home repair assistance to military veterans and their families because it combined the company’s expertise (home services) with a cause that would appeal to shoppers. Its first two fund-raising drives in 2007 raised more than $3.7 million company donations and customer donations at checkout and Sears credit card transactions. This funding paid for renovations for more than 300 military veterans and was judged such a success that it is being expanded and repeated this year.

Silver: Crate & Barrel’s Distribution of DonorsChoose.org Gift Certificates, Crate and Barrel and Donor’s Choose.org

The dual objectives of this campaign were to deepen Crate & Barrel customer loyalty and inspire civic engagement via DonorsChoose.org. Crate and Barrel provided funding to DonorsChoose.org and sent gift certificates to select customers that enabled them to browse the DonorsChoose.org website and apply the certificate to funding the classroom project of its choice. In the three waves of mailings that had been conducted when the entry was submitted, more than 15,000 customers redeemed the certificates, an extraordinary 12% direct mail response rate. Market research revealed significant increases in customer loyalty among program participants – even those who had not taken the time to redeem a certificate. The program has generated more than $500,000 to fund 6,000 classroom projects reaching more than 150,000 students and generated tremendous publicity for DonorChoose.org which has led to new individual and corporate support.

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Best Health Campaign

Gold: Skin Cancer Takes Friends: Protect and Love the Skin You’re In, Procter & Gamble’s Olay and the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery

This program aimed to inspire women to protect themselves and their loved ones from the sun. A core feature: free skin cancer screenings at participating dermatologists’ offices from May to July 2007. PR support yielded widespread broadcast, print and online coverage helping the program attract more than 9,000 individuals for screenings in 200+ towns in 45 states. An estimated 2,400 suspicious lesions were identified.

Silver: Albertsons Healthy Eaters, SUPERVALU Albertsons and elementary schools in seven western states

School districts across America have prioritized teaching young children about nutrition, but face budget challenges. The Albertsons Healthy Eaters program reinforces the nutrition and healthy living curricula taught in schools and, where it is lacking, fills in the gaps. In 2007 83,000 students participated in 2,850 field trips to their local Albertsons supermarket where they visited departments related to the five food groups as well as hands on activities and sampling. Tour leaders are trained local store personnel and teachers are provided with a variety of materials for use in the classroom. The program has received high marks from educators and Albertsons is confident that the program is building customer loyalty among teachers, parents and future generations of shoppers.

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Best Environmental/Wildlife Campaign

Gold: Chase The Extraordinary, InterContinental Hotels Group

To raise employee attention about the environment, IHG organized a mobile tour to all 203 company-owned hotels US, Central and South America engaging over 12,000 employees. A specially outfitted hybrid Ford Escape kicked off the tour at IHG headquarters in Atlanta. At each stop, management talked about how employees can make an impact in their communities and explained the company’s environmental initiatives including a program requiring properties to replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps. That program alone resulted in the changing of over 200,000 bulbs which will save millions in energy costs and significantly reduce carbon carbon dioxide emissions.

Silver: Save Our Selves, Esurance and Live Earth

Since launching its completely online approach to selling and servicing auto insurance in 1999, Esurance has made environmental commitment a core value – its nearly paperless experience saves trees, landfill space and CO2 emissions. In 2007 the company developed a partnership with Live Earth to promote client change awareness. Esurance integrated Live Earth’s Save Our Selves campaign for a climate in Crisis in television, radio, print, online and PR communications which drove consumers to a website full of tips on reducing one’s carbon footprint. Ads proved highly popular with target consumers generating consumer interest far longer than the average Esurance campaign, elevated the company’s position as an environmental leader and engaged hundreds of thousands of people in learning about ways to impact the environment.

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Best Social Service/Education Campaign

Gold: The Game Show Network’s National Vocabulary Championship, The Game Show Network, several educational organizations including the National Association of Secondary School Principals and 700 high schools nationwide

To help disadvantaged kids improve their college entrance exam scores, this cable television network created a hip game show that starts in the classroom, provides test prep materials from program partner The Princeton Review and culminates in an exciting final round with a top prize of a $40,000 scholarship. From a business perspective the program strengthened affiliate relationships and engaged viewers. The program garnered extensive editorial and public service support, and in its second year, the number of participants tripled to 100,000.

Silver: State Farm’s 50 Million Pound Challenge, State Farm Insurance

State Farm, America’s leading car and home insurer, created a 14 city tour to educate African Americans about the risks associated with being overweight as a way to enhance its relationships with that community. The 50 Million Pound Challenge leveraged the draw of celebrities like comedian Steve Harvey and singer Patti LaBelle to attract consumers to a party with a purpose. Attendees were motivated to register on the Challenge website which offers ongoing advice and support developed by Dr. Ian Smith to help people lose weight. To date, hundreds of thousands of people have taken the Challenge and collectively lost more than 2 million pounds.

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Best Cause Marketing Event

Gold: : Live Earth, Live Earth, numerous media and marketing partners and the Alliance for Climate Protection

On July 7, 2007, Live Earth held the largest global entertainment event in history, staging simultaneous concerts in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Hamburg, as well as special broadcast events in Antarctica, Kyoto and Washington, DC. Partnered with Al Gore and his Alliance for Climate Protection, Live Earth’s 24 hours of music across seven continents delivered a worldwide call to action to solve climate change and provided individuals with the solutions necessary to answer that call. The day featured more than 150 musical acts – a mix of legendary artists like The Police, Genesis and Madonna with the latest headliners. Through TV, radio and the Internet, the concert reached an estimated two billion people.

Silver: A Day Made Better, OfficeMax and Adopt-A-Classroom

It’s estimated that teachers spend $4 billion out of their own pockets annually on basic supplies for their classrooms. Officemax decided to raise awareness of this unacceptable standard in the education system by teaming up with Adopt-A-Classroom on an audacious event: simultaneously surprising teachers in 1,000 classrooms in 25 markets at 10 am on October 2 2007 with major classroom donations. The campaign exceeded its media goals by generating 53 million impressions nearly all of which mentioned OfficeMax, nearly quintupled individual donations to Adopt-A-Classroom in the month of October, and generated a groundswell of appreciation from teachers, consumers and OfficeMax employees.

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Best Joint Message Promotion

Gold: Destination Joy presented by Lays, Frito-Lay and Make A Wish Foundation of America

This campaign brought together two types of “joy”: 1) the joy of eating Lay’s potato chips made with heart healthy sunflower oil and 2) the joy of granting wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses. The multifaceted program included media, celebrity wish granters, online, direct mail, promotional packaging and special events. In its first year, it engaged consumers to volunteer and donate, generated $2.5 million in sponsorship revenue for the foundation.and helped increase Lay’s sales.

Silver: Save Our Selves, Esurance and Live Earth

Since launching its completely online approach to selling and servicing auto insurance in 1999, Esurance has made environmental commitment a core value – its nearly paperless experience saves trees, landfill space and CO2 emissions. In 2007 the company developed a partnership with Live Earth to promote client change awareness. Esurance integrated Live Earth’s Save Our Selves campaign for a climate in Crisis in television, radio, print, online and PR communications which drove consumers to a website full of tips on reducing one’s carbon footprint. Ads proved highly popular with target consumers generating consumer interest far longer than the average Esurance campaign, elevated the company’s position as an environmental leader and engaged hundreds of thousands of people in learning about ways to impact the environment.

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Best Cause Marketing Print Creative

Gold: Gifts for Greater Good, Target, The Salvation Army and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

For the holiday season, Target relied heavily on print advertising to promote gift items that generated donations to The Salvation Army and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The print campaign (an award winner last year as well) appeared in many forms – as full page ads and 4-page inserts in many newspapers and bus signs and billboards to name a few.

Silver: Pedigree Adoption Drive, Pedigree and numerous animal shelters

A two-time winner for best print creative, the Pedigree Adoption Drive campaign once again melted our hearts with its depiction of dogs awaiting adoption. While competitors have done occasional promotions on this theme, Pedigree has embraced the issue of dog adoption with fully integrated, large-scale evergreen programming under the tagline “Help Us Help Dogs” The campaign has helped Pedigree make significant sales progress in a highly competitive category and donate over $1 million toward adoption.

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Best National/Local Integration

Gold: The Warm Coats & Warm Hearts Drive, ABC News’ “Good Morning America”, Burlington Coat Factory and One Warm Coat.

It was a match made in heaven when One Warm Coat, “Good Morning America” and Burlington decided in November 2007 that they wanted to help fight the winter cold. Launched with celebrity involvement, media, retail support and the cooperation of 185 local nonprofit agencies, this national coat drive brought in 165,000 coats, generated more than 401 million impressions and led to 15,000 redemptions of Burlington “thank you” coupons given to consumers who donated coats

Silver: Lets All Play…It Matters, Hasbro and Boundless Playgrounds

After working together for some time, Hasbro decided in 2005 to increase its commitment to Boundless Playgrounds with the goals of growing the Playskool brand; raising awareness of the nonprofit’s mission inspiring communities to build boundless playgrounds for children with and without disabilities. This resulted in the 2006 launch of a “Playskool Win a Boundless Playground Essay Contest” that attracted entries from nearly 1,000 communities thanks to outreach coordinated with more than 80 national organizations and media partners. The program culminated in the November 2007 grand opening of a boundless playground at McCullough Elementary School in Claridge, Pennsylvania. Hasbro and Boundless Playgrounds report that the program more than delivered on its objectives.

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