At London’s World Entrepreneurial Summit, MSN announced their plans to launch a portal with WhatOnEarthIsGoingOn devoted to cause marketing. The portal will bring together marketers and consumers in an online community, in the hope of building a mutually beneficial relationship where marketers can provide up-to-date information and consumers can voice their desires. It sounds promising because if cause marketing works by appealing to the best in each of us, then the forum should work by bringing out the best in us as informed individuals.
The portal is accommodating a willing audience because as an article at ClickZ points out, consumers have grown skeptical about cause marketing. As consumers became more knowledgeable about the causes supported by corporations, the more they saw corporations not meeting all the needs of the cause. So consumers stopped just believing and started taking corporate statements with a grain of salt. Today, brands have to prove they are not only promoting the cause, but also contributing to it. And with a forum devoted to corporate social responsibility, it seems brands can have the opportunity to prove their authenticity.
We like that, here in the jungle.