The solution tried over the last winter was an innovative CRM campaign.The company decided to join forces with Age Concern to launch a Winter Warmers campaign to raise funds for older people and to raise awareness of their special needs in winter.London Electricity’s 1.8 million customers all received a tear-off coupon on their bill linked to a page in the accompanying customer magazine, which explained the campaign’s objectives and encouraged them to return the coupon.The company pledged pounds 1 for every coupon received with a ceiling of pounds 40,000.Although it’s too recent a campaign to have full results yet, the PR team at Countrywide Porter Novelli points out that the campaign has already achieved a considerable PR result, with broadcast coverage across most of the capital’s local media, and so far more than 130,000 bill coupons have been returned.. By the end of last year 25,000 free first aid course places had been offered and 13,000 people had trained.Post-campaign analysis showed that almost a quarter of people would be more likely to buy Norwich Union products having seen the ad, while nearly two-thirds of delegates on the courses said they felt more positive about Norwich Union.St John Ambulance, on the other hand, not only got the opportunity to train thousands of people it might not otherwise have done, but it also received an increase in membership enquiries and attendance at some of the other courses it runs.London Electricity had a problem of a similar magnitude. It was a search that unearthed St John Ambulance as the prospective partner, and the two parties embarked on a regional television advertising and PR campaign, with Norwich Union offering to stump up for first aid courses at local St John Ambulance Centres.The ad was the first time the charity had been able to get on to television and featured people giving conflicting advice to a little girl who had supposedly drunk white spirit. The television campaign was given additional support by a PR campaign co-ordinated by the Quentin Bell Organisation.The results were staggering. The idea was to think of a cause-related marketing initiative that would foster more public empathy.Norwich Union conducted qualitative research through Chris Payne Associates to find out what sort of cause would sit well with their customer base. Policy-holders would maintain an annual connection with the company to renew their contracts and that was about it. It’s an area where innovation is crucial, and where, as a result, cause-related marketing has an increasingly strong foothold.
Financial services is a product category that makes people’s eyes glaze over, while the provision of electricity is treated with intense contempt, but both sectors have turned to CRM initiatives to help change these perceptions.Two years ago Norwich Union was looking at ways it could bring its financial service products to the front of people’s minds.

Anyone can sell a Ferrari – the real skill comes in selling people something they aren’t prepared to admit that they want. But ask almost any professional what the most rewarding job in marketing is and they’ll tell you a different story. It’s one of marketing’s unwritten rules, the sexier a product or service is to the public at large, the less satisfying the marketing of it becomes. If you were peering into the marketing world from the outside, looking for a brand you thought you might like to make your name on, it is a fair bet that you might choose an expensive motor car, or record label, perhaps even a jeans company, writes Richard Cook. It launched its Computers For Schools initiative as long ago as 1992, and the venture has impinged itself so deeply upon the national consciousness that a third of all schools now place orders for equipment.In addition to enhanced corporate profile and customer loyalty, sales have increased as a direct result and Tesco has been rewarded by the sweetest compliment of all – some of its cut throat competitors have launched their own imitation of the scheme.But then imitation, in business more than anywhere else, really is the sincerest form of flattery..

One strong example is of the New Covent Garden Soup Company which has used cause-related marketing to introduce new flavours to the market with tremendous success.Its brand is all about organic and natural values so it tied up with the National Trust to launch its wild mushroom flavour, offering 10p per carton up to a pounds 40,000 ceiling and picturing the cause on its packaging. It seemed, again like all the best examples, to be a completely natural fit.But that sort of quick response, tactical use of CRM, is not for everybody.Some of Britain’s biggest companies have moved along the same lines as American Express, developing long-term brand links with their chosen causes.Tesco is practically the grand old man of British CRM. But it wasn’t:”In the end 19 states threatened to sue and the product was withdrawn,” explains Sue Adkins, director of cause-related marketing at Business in the Community, “and what had seemed like a good example turned into anything but.”The problems were that this was just a repackaged existing product, and that it was unclear to the consumer how much the Arthritis Foundation stood to benefit.”What’s worse, it wasn’t made clear that these were the same tablets available everywhere, but in this case ones that helped a good cause, while not all of the funds were going to help the Foundation.”The lesson is that it’s vital that charities ask all the right questions if these relationships are going to work as they can.”And it demonstrates that while the temptation is to think that the US is so advanced and sophisticated that we should only really be looking over there for inspiration, the truth of the matter is simply that they do a lot of it Some excellent, some good and some bad. There was plenty of scientific evidence that ibuprofen was beneficial in the treatment of arthritis.During the promotion, awareness of the Foundation and the services it provides almost doubled It seemed to be a win-win situation. And because in part we have learned the important lessons there has always been plenty of innovation and creativity over here.”There are a host of examples to support this contention, ranging from small companies and charities to some of Britain’s biggest names.What they all have in common is a prevailing logic behind the link. There are in fact almost as many cautionary tales emerging from across the pond as there are of schemes that deserve to be imitated.The experience of the American Arthritis Foundation, for instance, should send a chill to many a charity’s heart. American Express has since refined its own method.Indeed, not all examples from the US really support the idea that North American marketing initiatives are light years ahead of their leaden British imitators.