How has cause-related marketing altered corporate philanthropy and consumer culture?
Until the 1980s, corporate philanthropy was a relatively random, eclectic, and unscientific activity based largely on the individual preferences of high-ranking executives. Since then, it has been transformed into a highly calculated, quantified and planned approach, often called “strategic philanthropy” or “charitable investing.” Of all the tools that have emerged during this time, cause-related marketing—when a company allies itself with a specific cause, and contributes money, time or expertise in return for the right to make publicity or commercial value–is among the most popular and publicly visible. The effect of this transformation has been to place philanthropy at the center of business activity and to transform it into a revenue-producing mechanism. 6. What is the significance of the change from “cancer victim” to “cancer survivor” in the cancer establishment? There are both positive and negative implications to this shift. Cancer activists now share a sense of the importance
