Here I sit on New Year’s Night, watching a little TV.  I am watching the first episode of the new season of the Biggest Loser, a show I do not usually watch.  At one point, one of the trainers mentions their efforts to reduce disposable water bottle use in conjunction with their sponsor, Brita, and the FiltersforGood program.  So of course my antennae go up immediately as I am always on the look out for best practice examples…and I head to NBC’s Biggest Loser website at  http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser_5 to learn more.  One of the banner ads across the top of the Biggest Loser page is for FiltersforGood.  Clicking on the image redirected me to http://www.filterforgood.com/index.php .   

Investigating further on the Brita sponsor page http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser_5/sponsors/brita/, I read, “Americans send about 38 billion plastic water bottles a year to landfills. This season, “The Biggest Loser” has partnered with Brita’s FilterForGood campaign to eliminate bottled water from the campus. We’ve always been dedicated to improving your health and now we’re helping Mother Earth, too!  Brita transforms tap water into healthier, great-tasting water. When combined with a Nalgene bottle, filtered water is an ideal solution for “going green” at home, at the gym or on the go. Visit FilterForGood.com and join us by pledging to give up bottled water, too!”

The FilterForGood home page asks viewers to sign up for the pledge to reduce bottled water waste, offers additional pages with facts and eco-friendly tips, has an ad for the Biggest Loser show including a description of the partnership, as well as links to receive Brita coupons or buy a water bottle.

When clicking the Buy Now button, I was redirected to the Nalgene site, http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=91.  There I see a picture of the bottle and read, “Want to reduce the amount of waste you produce? Want to help reduce global warming and help make safe drinking water a universal reality? Buy this commemorative Filter For Good – Refill Not Landfill bottle and Nalgene and Brita will donate proceeds to Blue Planet Run.”  For every FilterForGood refillable bottle purchased between August 10th and January 31st, 2008, a donation of $4 will be made to the Blue Planet Run Foundation.

Next I googled Blue Planet Run and learned “Blue Planet Run Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to raising global awareness about the lack of safe drinking water, and funding working solutions today for the billion people living without ready access to this life sustaining resource.  Since 2004, the U.S.-based foundation has funded 11 non-governmental organizations worldwide which have in turn implemented 135 sustainable water projects in 13 countries impacting 100 thousand lives. The Foundation’s signature awareness and fundraising event is the Blue Planet Run, the first-ever around-the-world relay run.”

I think this is a great example of a cause marketing effort conducted by two companies that sell water container and purifying products - their choice of the Blue Planet Run Foundation as the beneficiary shows a clear link to their respective business missions.  Also, it makes good business sense to promote their products as a solution to the environmental issue of disposable water bottles by offering consumers not only an easy thing to do but a way to support a nonprofit working on water issues internationally at the same time.  Having a partnership with a popular national television show was brilliant and really boosted the visibility of the FilterforGood program, the companies and their products, and provided consumer education on the issues of disposable water bottles, as well as got great mileage for the TV show and their attention to environmental issues.  Blue Planet Run received dollars to help support their programming as well as invaluable exposure to a broader audience then they probably could afford through their own marketing/advertising efforts.  FilterforGood definitely appears to be an all-win partnership with an excellent ability to cross-promote all four entites – Biggest Loser, Blue Planet Run, Brita and Nalgene.

My only recommendation for improvement of the campaign would be either to have a 1-2 sentence description of the nonprofit beneficiary, Blue Planet Run Foundation, on the FilterforGood and Nalgene websites or provide a link so consumers can learn more about the nonprofit they are supporting through their purchase.  There are clearly visible links to Nalgene and Brita on FilterforGood.com but not for Blue Planet Run.  They seem like a cool organization, so why not feature them?  A lot of people won’t make the extra effort to search Google like I did to find out more – not having more information readily available is a missed opportunity to raise awareness about the nonprofit and the showcase the companies’ strategic choice to support it in light of its mission connection with what they do.  I’ll give you the link since they didn’t: http://blueplanetrun.org/foundation.

Are there ways your company could engage in a win-win cause marketing initiative instead of checkbook philanthropy?