Episode 241: I’m With The Brand, part 3 (unpacking cause marketing)

Let’s travel back in time to a year that was neither simpler nor kinder than 2025, but still somehow felt slightly less devastating. Somehow. That year is 2018.

I was working at my worst job ever (the alleged feminist brand).

Donald Trump was president (for the first time).

And the Trump administration was separating migrant families at the border, literally putting kids (and adults) in cages. Remind me again how he somehow ended up becoming president a second time? Never mind, don’t tell me because I’m already filled with enough rage and despair today.

All three of those facts: working at the feminist brand, Donald Trump is president, and kids are literally in cages are an important part of the story I am about to tell.

In June of that year, First Lady Melania Trump visited the New Hope Children’s Shelter in McAllen, Texas.  At the time, the facility housed 55 children. Most of them were minors who had crossed the border unaccompanied. Some were separated from their families at the border.  This trip was a big deal because Melania was the first sort of “senior member” of the administration to visit the border since Trump’s immigration policies had taken effect.  All eyes were on her for this visit.  And wouldn’t you know, she boarded her flight to Texas wearing an olive green coat that read, in white capital letters, “I really don’t care. Do U?” She did not wear it while visiting the children, but she did put it back on for her flight back home.

This jacket was $39 and it was from Zara.  It was an intentional statement, although Melania denied it for years. But come on…Melania Trump is not shopping at Zara. The Trumps care about image more than just about anyone else, even if that image is perhaps not as cool or admired as they might hope.  

Some of you might remember this jacket and that ensuing controversy quite clearly, for others, it might have just been yet another blip in a nonstop series of fucked up shit that happened (and is happening) while Trump is in the White House.

For me, the stupid jacket turned into months of permanent stomachache and headache, until I finally left the quasi-feminist brand at the end of the summer.

By June of 2018, I was paying a lot less attention to the news. Work was slowly eroding any sense of self I had…I had withdrawn from most of my friends, working most of my waking hours each day. I did not cook (something I love doing).  I did not read books. I did not make crafts or plant a garden.   Dustin was still working primarily as a live sound engineer, so he often worked at night. I walked home from work, only to sit down on the couch in my living room for a few more hours, one hand on one work laptop, the other hand sharing food from the Whole Foods salad bar with my cat George.

I missed the story about Melania’s jacket that afternoon, but I certainly learned all about it around ten pm when my boss, the CEO, started texting me.

Basically she and the creative director were wondering if we could sell a t-shirt version of Melania’s jacket…but instead it would say “I really DO care, don’t u?” Portions of sales would be donated to a charity (TBD).  It would be a great moment to get the brand more press.

So just some brief backstory on this brand and my job there.  I was Director of Merchandising, which meant I was in charge of everything product related, from developing/finding the actual product we sold, making sure it fit right, quality assurance, negotiating the pricing, placing the orders, tracking sales/placing reorders, making sure vendors got paid, and just generally creating and executing the entire product strategy for the company. Basically everything you could buy from them was there because of me.  To help me with all of that, I had two assistant buyers (both rad and delightful people) and an awesome planner (who I adored). In fact, I loved my entire team and I took the job of mentoring and protecting them very seriously. The mentoring was necessary because everyone should be learning and growing at their jobs and the protecting, well that was essential because that workplace was incredibly chaotic and toxic. And it was good that my team and I cared about one another, because resources at this company were so slim, that we all literally sat at table together all day that was considered “the buying department desk.” 

When I joined the company, it was right after I had been laid off from Nasty Gal (and about 6 months before Boohoo finally bought the brand in bankruptcy court). And coming into this new, smallish brand, I was excited! The brand itself focused on what it called “tomboy” aesthetic, basically menswear for women.  When I was hired, most of the stuff they sold was just the smallest sizes from menswear lines, along with a horrible collection of fast fashion suits, and some graphic tees (always black with white lettering or vice versa).  And right before I was hired, they had some modest success with a line of feminist tees.  I saw the potential there in a major way, especially because it was looking like that year’s election was going to be Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump.  What an amazing time to build a brand with feminist values right before we would hopefully have our first woman president here in the United States?

Well, we know how that worked out.

But the brand got a major bump in sales after Donald Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape was released. He (and his allies) dismissed it as simple, every day “locker room talk.”  Soon after, a photo went viral on Facebook showing a group of male high school athletes wearing this brand (my employer)’s feminist tee.  This was no coincidence…the CEO (whose background was in marketing) had reached out to male athletes (high school, college, and professional) offering them free tees in hopes of creating a viral moment just like this.  That photo of the high school boys was posted on October 13.  My wedding was two days later, on October 15.  And yes, I was in my wedding dress, being driven to the ceremony by my dad (Dustin and I were married at White Sands National Park in New Mexico)…negotiating and ordering more of these feminist tees with the printer in Portland.  After the ceremony, I was back in that van–with my new husband–texting back and forth with my assistant buyer about placing the order immediately.

Tee sales grew and grew, while I placed larger orders (and negotiated prices down).  The blanks themselves were made who knows where under who knows what circumstances.  But that didn’t matter…feminist tees were the new thing that everyone must have.  And like any good buyer, I turned that graphic into pins, sweatshirts, hats, pens, notepads…just about anything. In the period between the election and the Women’s March, we just kept beating our sales records.  We tried other graphics and art, but nothing came close to the sales of that original shirt.  But the sales from that allowed me to have the budget to develop new clothes for the brand that were what its core customer wanted–suiting, button ups, and later workwear–but versions that weren’t just the smallest size from a men’s line. Actually made for women, trans people, and nonbinary people who weren’t built like a cis male.

But by mid 2017, customers were rightly asking “why are you making money off of feminism?” So we worked a giveback component into each sale, something 1% of profits from sales of those tees would be donated to Planned Parenthood. Once again, it was a good marketing story and it got us press from blogs like Refinery 29.  It even got the CEO the opportunity to do a TedX talk.  And at one point, Forever 21 even copied the tee (in a pre-SHEIN world, that’s how you knew you had really ‘arrived.’” We were spending hours each week sending cease and desist notices to random sellers on Amazon, too. And behind the scenes, I was working with the printers to bring down the cost of the t-shirts so that we could make that donation while maintaining the same level of gross profit. 

Going into 2018, sales on the tees had slowed, along with all of the viral marketing and press.  For one, the market for feminist merch was flooded.  Think about it: the whole #girlboss era hadn’t fully peaked, even though Nasty Gal had already gone bankrupt. Every fast fashion brand did a collection for March (aka when International Women’s Day happens).  There were Earth Day collections and a flood of RBG merch everywhere, along with Golden Girls stuff…we’re talking peak “The Future is Female” and “Strong Female Lead” as tshirst and tote bag graphics.  Desk plaques that said “well behaved women rarely make history.” Keychains that said “She persisted.” Feminism was for sale…and it was for sale everywhere, at every price for every customer who wanted it.

So we had a lot of competition in the commodification of feminism.  Which meant, sales were slowing in the feminist merch area. Still MUCH bigger than they were when I joined the company, but it wasn’t unique any more.  Blogs and reporters were a lot less interested in it.

TBH there had even been conversations about “how can we make merch related to #MeToo without being gross?” We didn’t do it because ew, why would we? But when Melania showed up wearing that jacket, she gave the brand an opportunity. And to be clear: a woman like Melania Trump doesn’t “accidentally” wear a Zara jacket, much less a Zara jacket with a statement like that.  It was disgusting.  Years later, Melania (after denying any intention behind that jacket) would say that she wore it as a statement against the press coverage of her…but at the time, wearing a jacket like that to visit kids in cages at the border…well, it’s pretty heinous.

So back to that Thursday night in June when the jacket was filling up the news cycle (and yeah, the jacket was a gross choice, but how about continuing to talk about the families being separated at the border instead?) My boss texted me at 10 pm asking if I could make a tee out of it.  Profits from the shirt sales would be donated to an organization that provides social and legal services to migrants. I said, “sure, we just need to find a blank to use and we need to coordinate production with the printer.” Okay, but my boss wanted to do a preorder so it could be available for sale asap, before the news cycle moved on.  I said that was totally fine, but I need to talk to the printer in the morning to see when he would be able to do the printing. And of course, we would also need to have blanks to print on…which would mean finding someone who had them in stock in all sizes, the right color, and at a price we could afford. All-in-all, the soonest we could have anything to ship–assuming that the printer had space for us–would be in 3-4 weeks.  

By the time I woke up the next morning, the t-shirt was already for sale.  I spent the entire day emailing and calling t-shirt suppliers to find a blank that looked like the photoshopped version on the website.  By late afternoon, a jacket and a sweatshirt had been added, so now I was begging for those, too. 

I could go on for hours telling you about the horror of the next few weeks, but I honestly just don’t want to relive it.  I was constantly trying to find product that did not exist, dealing with a boss who was so hopped up on the press attention, that she would periodically just materialize at my desk (aka the table I shared with my team) to tell me loudly that I MUST MAKE IT WORK AND IT WAS MY PROBLEM TO SOLVE…then go jump on the phone with the Today show or whatever.

And the thing was…while in the early days of this job it had felt exhilarating and even REWARDING to work there and feel like I was a part of something bigger than me…it had stopped feeling that way a long time ago.  We were still selling fast fashion…but with a patina of activism.  And the donations were not that big. If you’re donating 1% of a $40 t-shirt…that’s 40 cents. If you sell 10,000 shirts, that’s only a $4000 donation, which doesn’t do much for Planned Parenthood.  It just felt…scammy.  

Ultimately, I left the company a few months later.  I was already planning it since the beginning of the year when my boss told me that no, we would never be getting health insurance because profitability was the company’s number one priority.  And I had reached a point where I was fantasizing about taking out life insurance and then ending my life so my family could be cared for and I wouldn’t have to work at the job anymore.

But even months after I left the company, the t-shirts, jackets, and sweatshirts still hadn’t been shipped. I don’t know when the donation was ever made and I don’t know how much was donated.  I suspect that the company lost money on chargebacks, expedited shipping, and refunds.  This is what happens when marketing and press are prioritized over, you know, actually having something to sell.  And I doubt that anyone has worn that t-shirt (if they ever received it) any time recently, because why would you? It’s an unappealing copy of unappealing Zara art…and most people have forgotten the original inspiration because the news cycle has been nonstop and full of daily fresh horrors since 2018.  Ironically, these days the internet is flooded with print on demand copies of the t-shirt…and I just wonder who is actually buying them in 2025.

The thing is…I can’t even judge my previous employer for doing this fundraising stuff, because for the 2010s through the early 2020s, this was just a regular part of doing business for most brands around the world.  In fact, marketing and branding experts declared that brands MUST be doing things like this because “millennials only want to shop from brands that care about the issues.” So everyone was on board:

• TOMS gave away a pair of shoes for every shoe it sold.
• Warby Parker was doing something similar.
• In 2010, American Express launched Small Business Saturday, an initiative that encouraged consumers to shop at small, local businesses on a specific Saturday…while Amex racked up those transaction fees!
• Project Red, a brand launched by U2’s Bono, was collaborating with Apple, Gap, Nike, Starbucks and more…to create red merchandise whose proceeds would be donated to charities supporting AIDS and malaria outreach in Africa.

This kind of fundraising/social benefit campaign created by a brand is called “cause marketing,” and it’s one of the biggest trends of “emotional branding” predicted by Marc Gobe in the 2000s. In this episode, part 3 in a series about brands and branding (and why it all kinda fuels overconsumption), we’re going to dissect all kinds of examples of cause marketing in this century:

• Fundraiser collections
• Why everything was pink in October
• Round ups at checkout
• 1% for the Planet
• B Corp certification

And so much more. We have a lot to cover, so let’s jump right in!

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that shudders every time it thinks about all of the feminist tees in the landfill right now.

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 241, part 3 in an ongoing series about brands and how they influence our identities and drive consumerism.

In part one we explored the meanings of brand and branding, along with the history of branding. I also revealed some brands that are really just licensed zombies at this point.  

In part two, we unpacked the concept of “emotional branding” and how it has influenced our own relationships with brands, building large communities of strangers who are brought together because of where they like to shop/ what they like to buy.

You should definitely go listen to those before you jump into this one!

In this week’s episode, we are going to be talking all about one of the specific branding/marketing trends predicted by Marc Gobe in his early 00s book “Emotional Branding,” and that is “cause marketing.” I was going to include some of Gobe’s other trends in this episode, but holy macaroni…cause marketing is a dense topic.  So we will be talking about  more of his predictions in next week’s episode, along with sharing your brand stories and thoughts. In fact…send me your stories about brands that you used to be obsessed with…and why you aren’t any more (or maybe you still are).  A brand that disappointed you. Or a brand you LOVE now because of something they did or didn’t do.  Or maybe your thoughts on “cause marketing!” 

You can record these thoughts as a voice memo on your phone and send them to me.  Or write an email. Please do not DM me on Instagram. Chances are I will miss it because my notifications are always blowing up there.  My email address is always in the show notes.  It’s [email protected]

Two more announcements before we get going!

First: you might remember my talking about the Crafternoon event in July in Philadelphia with Ruby of Slow Fashion Academy.  Well guess what? We had to reschedule due to illness, so it is now being held on Sunday, September 21.  And we have two tickets left!  So if you missed getting a ticket before, now is your chance but act fast! I will share the link in the show notes! You can get all of the details there!

Next, I must remind you that Clotheshorse is coming to the West Coast in October, and I’m doing two live shows:

🐴 Thursday, October 23, Seattle WA at Here-After

🐴 Sunday, October 26, Portland, OR at Holocene

Tickets are on sale and a limited number are available, so get them now!

Both venues have told me that tickets are selling very fast and will most likely sell out as we get closer to the day of the show, so don’t procrastinate! Links are in the show notes and at clotheshorsepodcast.com

In the last episode, we talked about Marc Gobe’s book Emotional Branding (essentially the Flowers in the Attic of marketing and branding in this century) and how it really is the playbook of every employer I have had in my career…except for (strangely enough) Urban Outfitters, who for a very long time coasted without dipping into emotional branding just by focusing on cool looking stores and good visual branding.  In fact, I would say that Urban Outfitters for quite some time had “emotionless branding,” minus the promise (and I’m not saying it’s a valid promise) that if you shopped there, you might acquire a slight patina of coolness. But something that always struck me about working there is that we never cared about fundraising. Anything remotely political was discouraged (unless it was ironic).  And the brand as a whole just focused on curation, good in-store merchandising (thanks to the in house display and merchandising teams in every store..until recently every store had a woodshop in the back and people who were building just about every display element back there).  I worked as a visual merchandising manager for Urban for several years, where I spent a lot of time moving clothes around again and again, painting walls, climbing ladders, drilling holes, dyeing fabric, painting windows, weaving, macrameing, attaching flowers to webbing, and on and on and on.  Perhaps the emotion in it all was just…things looked good and interesting.  The customer loyalty and emotional connection was never the same as it was and has been for Anthropologie and Free People (also owned by URBN) because the customer’s relationship was intended to be fleeting…eventually they would outgrow it and move on to Anthro or Free People.

In fact, the only time I remember Urban Outfitters dipping its toes into emotional branding via cause marketing was early in my time as a buyer with the company, working as an assistant buyer in shoes.  We were going to help launch a new shoe brand called TOMS, that promised to donate one pair of shoes for every pair sold. This was a new and wild concept…and TOMS would go on to be so successful that every startup was asked by potential investors “how can you implement a TOMS-model into your business?” I know this because, well, I was dealing with this at every other job I had for years.  Investors were even asking us this at the quasi feminist brand.  Imagine if we had donated one feminist tee for every one we sold! What a world changer (please note my sarcasm).  The thing about TOMS was…well, for one the sales team was hyper aggressive, constantly harassing me for reorders…which we didn’t need because the brand was initially not very successful for Urban Outfitters. Maybe because even though a million internet thinkpieces were declaring “MILLENNIALS ONLY WANT TO BUY FROM BRANDS THAT HAVE A MISSION,” the reality was that millennials were also the fast fashion generation, and with limited income, they would rather have a bunch of Forever 21 clothes than a sort of uncute pair of canvas slip on sneakers.  Two years later, Urban would try to push TOMS again, giving them a big spot in the entry of every store with a huge sign…and even then, it was kinda meh (but better).

Put a pin in TOMS because we are going to come back to that, dissecting the shortcomings of its model, because TOMS is really a poster child for cause marketing that was successful…but also, worthy of criticism.

Let’s get started by explaining what cause marketing is. As I mentioned in the intro, Marc Gobe saw cause marketing as one of the essential branding trends of the new millennium.  Cause marketing is a business strategy where companies partner with nonprofit organizations or social causes to create mutually beneficial campaigns.  Or in theory…mutually beneficial campaigns: The company gains positive brand association and more customer loyalty…while the cause receives funding and awareness.  And cause marketing comes in many forms:

• Sales of a product where the portion of the proceeds/profits goes to the charity/organization.
• This is adjacent to things like 1% for the Planet, an international organization whose members contribute at least one percent of their annual revenue to environmental causes.
• Round ups at the cash register: where customers can round up their total, with that additional money being donated.
• Corporate responsibility initiatives that are implemented for marketing purposes, like “here’s our corporate team out planting trees today” or “our staff acts as mentors for Big Brothers, Big Sisters.” That kind of thing.
• When companies donate unsold items or other supplies to survivors of a natural disaster (and then post about it on social media)
• Even B Corp certification (and other certifications) can be seen as a form of cause marketing.

Now, if you recall from the previous episode in this series, we talked about how the essential goal of emotional branding is to make a big brand feel “personal,” more like a small business.  And before one of you sends me a very rowdy email, I do not think it is scammy or some kind of cynical marketing play when small businesses donate a portion of sales or hold fundraisers for causes.  I think that is legit and it comes from the heart.  After all, the thing about small businesses is they usually are run by one or two people, so they don’t need to pretend to be actual, sincere people.  And when they engage in charitable stuff, it’s because it really matters to them.  They are literally giving away their time and/or money.

But when Free People promises to donate a portion of all sales on Earth Day to the national parks…well you have to wonder how impactful that really is. When you take a step back, it starts to look like a very cynical marketing ploy.  After all,  wouldn’t it be way more meaningful for the planet and its people if Free People actually just worked to clean up its supply chain, mitigate its plastic pollution, and pay everyone a living wage?  Oh right, that would be a lot more effort than donating a small portion of sales for one day.

Cause marketing has become a fixture of branding strategy in this century, but it first picked up traction in the 1980s. In 1983, American Express offered to donate a portion of a particular credit card’s revenues to the renovation of the Statue of Liberty.  Every time a  customer used the card over a three month period, 1 cent was donated to the fund to restore the Statue of Liberty.   The brand ended up raising about $1.7 million dollars, which is more than $4million dollars today.  Card use rose over 30 percent!!!  

And when you think about it, it felt like a win-win for the company and the consumer.  The consumer got to feel patriotic.  Like they were doing something good for the world, with a minimum amount of effort.  Basically, you’re telling me I can be a hero just by spending money? Sign me up. And also, this was most consumers’ first experience with cause marketing, so it felt exciting, new, and SINCERE. 

Amex was losing one cent  from each transaction to this donation, but they were charging retailers and restaurants about a dollar for every transaction. So we are talking about a loss of 1% here. And one thing you will notice in more contemporary cause marketing campaigns, 1% seems to be the comment threshold for giveback campaigns.  For example (again) 1% For The Planet.

Twenty one other companies pledged donations as part of a “sponsorship” role in the restoration of the Statue of Liberty..  These donations totaled about $69 million.  American Express declined the opportunity to officially sponsor the restoration because there were too many other brands involved and it was becoming “too hard to rise above the noise.”   In other words, it would be too easy for the public to miss the company’s good deeds because they would be drowned out by the other sponsors.  

Here’s another great example of early (and very successful) cause marketing. Remember Tang?  I’ve since blocked out the terrible faux orange flavor, but I know some of you have fond memories.  I skip all things orange-flavored-but-not-actually-made-of oranges, including Sunny D. Well, sales of  Tang rose 13 percent between August and December 1985. Was it a hot advertising campaign?  Some great coupon deals?  No, the only promotion the company had used during that period was a sponsorship of a March Across America to benefit Mothers Against Drunk Driving

The fight against breast cancer has widely benefited from these campaigns. Or at least, retailers and brands have benefitted from these campaigns.  I’m sure you’ve become nearly immune to all of the pink product that is available for sale in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  A wide range of products, from cake icing to socks to slow cookers, all promising a nebulous give back component, with a donation to a breast cancer charity.

However, this virtual industry of pink products has spiraled so far out of control, with little transparency and accountability for the companies selling the product.  In 2002, Breast Cancer Action launched Think Before You Pink, a  response to the growing concern about the overwhelming number of pink ribbon products and promotions on the market.  This project pushed for more transparency from these companies–like how much is actually being donated? But Think Before You Pink was also pushing customers to do just that…think before they buy something pink.  The term “pinkwashing” was created to speak to the startling hypocrisy amongst these companies, who were often creating pink product using chemicals and processes that may cause cancer.  Or at the very least, pretending to care about breast cancer while also producing other products that may cause cancer.

But for years, selling pink versions of products during October was a given: pink mixers, pink travel mugs, pink spatulas, and any number of other pink and plastic items. And the companies selling these products benefited in multiple ways:

1. Good vibes from customers who appreciated a brand “giving back.”
2. Customers were motivated to buy something they didn’t really need because it felt like a charitable act.
3. People bought stuff they didn’t need just because it was pink.  Trust me, I have resisted the siren song of many pink appliances over the years.

 I couldn’t find any data to suggest that sales of  pink breast cancer awareness/fundraiser products have slowed in recent years, but I have noticed anecdotally that I see a lot less of them in stores in October.  And I also think that people kinda lost interest…and yes, that’s fucked up because breast cancer hasn’t gone away and it’s certainly no joke.  But the fact of the matter is…people get bored with the same old causes in their marketing.  

I read this amazing 2012 Fast Company piece by Cheryl Davenport that was critical of TOMS–the buy one, give one shoes–in a way that no one else was at the time. And in this article, Davenport wrote “From a business perspective, TOMS is at risk. Our research with leading consumer-facing companies has shown that there is a finite and unpredictable market for the feel good value proposition–consumers are fickle when it comes to committing to brands based on nonfunctional attributes. TOMS’s core value to its customers is being replicated by an increasing number of companies who can promise the exact same return: feeling good about your purchase.”  

Yeah, causes are trendy, just like clothes, shoes, color palettes, and contouring makeup.  

So let’s talk about TOMS a little bit more.  As I mentioned earlier, TOMS “buy one give one” model made it the darling of the startup world in the 2010s.  It was one of the best known “double bottom line” businesses of that era.  So what does that mean?

The “double bottom line”  is a business concept that measures success using two criteria instead of just financial profit. Companies adopting this approach evaluate their performance based on both traditional profit and financial success…and a social/environmental bottom line, meaning positive impact on the world around it.  Companies who embrace the double bottom line get a lot of good vibes from their customers, but I would also argue that it should be the standard, not the exception.  I give businesses who make decisions with their community and the planet in mind a lot of credit, but also, why don’t we expect that from everyone? Like why don’t we expect better from Amazon or SHEIN?

While TOMS was a darling of cause marketing in the 2010s, it wasn’t without criticism (although the criticism was a much smaller amount of the media coverage TOMS received). But when you take a step back and give it a closer examination, well you start to wonder why more of us weren’t talking about it. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with TOMS, the business model for years was that for every pair of TOMS sold, a modified version was donated to children in developing countries.  Back in the day, the TOMS website told the story of founder Blake Mycoskie, who visited Argentina in 2002 while competing in the Amazing Race with his sister.  He returned in 2006 to learn polo, where he met some women in a bar who were in Argentina to distribute shoes to children.  The experience motivated him to start TOMS.  The site no longer tells that story, instead it focuses on a variety of giveback programs, stating that the company has in the last two decades positively impacted more than 105 million lives and given away more than 100 million pairs of shoes.  And while TOMS once only offered a small assortment of canvas shoes, it sells boots, sunglasses, clothing, and more.  TOMS also gets a lot less media coverage these days.  And to be honest, I hadn’t thought about the brand in years before working on this episode. Could people be bored with the cause? Inundated by too many causes to care about? Or are we just all kinda burned out on having to buy something to do good?

So what were the criticisms of TOMS in its heyday?

• The model of giving away shoes actually disrupted local economies.   One study found that for every 20 pairs of shoes donated to a community, one less pair was purchased from a local business.  It’s not dissimilar to how the steady flow of secondhand clothing from the Global North has destroyed local garment and textile industries in the Global South.  As Cheryl Davenport said in her Fast Company piece, “By undercutting local prices, Western donations often hurt the farmers, workers, traders, and sellers whose success is critical to lifting entire communities out of poverty. That means every free shoe donated actually works against the long-term development goals of the communities we are trying to help.”
• Next, some argued that TOMS was actually taking a very “colonialism” approach to charity by deciding that shoes were the solution, without actually talking to communities about what they really needed. And ultimately, shoes were not the solution, making this a very ineffective aid model.  In fact, the same study I mentioned earlier, while agreeing that sure, TOMS wasn’t really “harming” communities, it also wasn’t really doing much good either, saying “in a context where most children already own at least one pair of shoes, the overall impact of the shoe donation program appears to be negligible, illustrating the importance of more careful targeting of in-kind donation programs.” In the 2010s, TOMS website cited that it was giving shoes to a group of 30,000 people living in a landfill in the Philippines.  The company pointed out that kids living in the landfill were prone to hookworms and other injuries that could be prevented by a pair of shoes.  And sure, if the kids don’t have shoes already, a pair will help. But it doesn’t eliminate the larger issues that people literally living in a landfill face, including the danger of living amongst decaying trash.  Shoes don’t get them a better place to live or access to better healthcare. It’s a bandaid on a much larger wound…a temporary fix.

Back to Cheryl Davenport again, “those ‘helped’ by Toms are, in the long-term, no more able to afford shoes or address the real social, economic, and health issues that they face than they were before. Once their free shoes wear out in a couple years, the children Toms ‘helped’ will be just as susceptible to the health and economic perils associated with bare feet as they were before.”   A more impactful program could have sponsored health care, education, housing, or even…made the shoes within these communities, creating jobs and economic opportunities for the residents. But would that motivate people to buy a pair of shoes? I mean, think about it…it’s super clever because the charitable giving ONLY happens if someone buys a pair of shoes, and the more shoes the person buys, the more people are “helped.” So it’s incredible marketing that directly drives sales for the company…even if the impact is murky at best. Ultimately, TOMS dropped the “one for one” program in 2021, but Cheryl Davenport’s final verdict on TOMS really captures the problem with most cause marketing in this century:  “The fact is, Toms isn’t designed to build the economies of developing countries. It’s designed to make western consumers feel good.”

That’s the thing about cause marketing…it’s not intended to make the world a better place. It’s intended to make us feel good about buying something, possibly even something we don’t need.  And when you really dig in to many cause marketing campaigns, you start to see how the biggest impact they have…is on a company’s annual revenue.

Back in the 2000s, Marc Gobe instructed brands to “Get to know who your consumers really are, what really matters to them, and show them that you feel the same way…The effectiveness of these programs can no  longer be questioned; done the right way, they can bolster a brand’s equity and provide an open conduit through which the consumer/brand relationship will deepen.” First off, ew, I don’t want to have a deep relationship with a business that sells me stuff. But remember, the primary ethos of “emotional branding” is selling to your customers without seeming like you are selling to them. So by giving your company a mission or a “cause” to talk about, you’re kinda selling without selling..especially if that mission is fueled by customers purchasing a specific product or buying something during a specific window of time.  Going back to TOMS, customers had to buy a pair of shoes to get a pair of shoes donated.  Rewinding all the way back to the 1980s, the donation to the restoration of the Statue of Liberty  was only made if customers used their American Express cards.

The criticism/concerns about cause marketing and its endless plethora of givebacks and fundraiser tees will not surprise you:

• First is the issue of authenticity.  Companies may engage in so-called “cause washing,”  without any real commitment to actual long term support. Rather it’s a reason to send out marketing emails and create social media content.  It’s a way to drive sales during a slow season.  It’s an opportunity to pick up some free PR. I read a New York Times article from 2009 (aka the Great Recession) that talked about how difficult it was to get people to spend money (obviously) but they were more apt to open their wallets if there was a charitable giveback involved. So companies were leaning into that to drive sales in an otherwise challenging economic climate.  
• Furthermore, a company might say it cares about women’s rights or climate change for a marketing story…but behind the scenes it’s underpaying women or doing nothing to reduce its carbon emissions. I mean, that’s pretty much any Zara sustainable collection or any fast fashion brand’s “feminist tees.” Is it feminist to wear a tee made by women who were underpaid and worked in terrible conditions? Is any brand who doesn’t talk about its garment workers really deserving credit for its latest fundraising scam?  One step further: is it feminist to overconsume clothing knowing that environmental justice is also a feminist issue?
• Next, cause marketing commercializes social issues.  It takes serious problems and turns them into marketing opportunities. It sells the illusion that we can shop our way to a better world….and we can’t! No “conscious” collection or Earth Day tee or feminist tee is going to ever fix the problems our world is facing. Like, not even a little bit.  Not to pick on TOMS, but those shoes didn’t really change any lives.  A pithy donation of 1% of sales of one certain item or collection isn’t going to either.
• But even more likely, cause marketing campaigns tend to be an inefficient form of giving.  I mean, first off, why should we have to buy something to get a company (with far more resources than us) to donate money to a cause? We don’t ask that question often enough.  Furthermore, the actual charitable impact is often small compared to marketing budgets. A company might donate a few cents per product while spending dollars on advertising the partnership. Those dollars could have been donated instead…but then how does that drive revenue? Often these donations are given well after the fact, after everything has been double checked by finance.  In cases where a company says it is donating a specific portion of “profits,” those profits are often calculated by deducting not just the cost of the product, but also any advertising budget, the staff that worked on that product, the social media and marketing teams, packaging, shipping, etc. There’s just not much profit left afterwards. When a company says it is donating a portion of the “proceeds,” well, that could be profits or sales. It is unclear.  And the thing is, there’s just no transparency. Rarely do we see the final donation because it happens so much later, we have often forgotten about it in the first place.  Interestingly enough, Marc Gobe and other marketing writers of the 2000s thought that the internet was this massive turning point in the ways brands could market themselves BECAUSE the internet would force them to behave more transparently…and yet, have they really? Sure, it can be (sort of) easier to call out brands thanks to social media (assuming that the algorithm even shows that post to enough people), but the existence of the internet has certainly not forced brands to be more transparent about anything, including the impact of their cause marketing.  If anything, it has made it easier for brands to bury the bad stuff about themselves in cute instagram posts and most definitely paid content on blogs and influencer accounts. 
• Another issue with cause marketing? It often overstates the impact of the company’s campaign or mission statement.  TOMS is a great example.  Sure, it’s a feel good story, but as the study I discussed earlier indicated, the impact really wasn’t that significant. 
• And worse, companies tend to pick the most popular, non-controversial causes to support because they won’t alienate customers or be less appealing and marketable…like focusing on children’s healthcare over care for unhoused adults or those struggling with addiction. Giving shoes to kids is way more heartwarming than cleaning up landfills or creating economic opportunities.
• Lastly, cause marketing exploits our desire to do good, making us feel good about purchases that we might have never made, all while creating a smokescreen for companies with less-than-stellar policies on human rights and environmental responsibility.  Once again, the obvious issue of feminist tees made by exploited female garment workers.  Or fast fashion brands selling us an “eco conscious” collection.  When I worked at Nasty Gal, an overall miserable place to work, where its primarily female workforce was overworked and underpaid, all in the name of selling low quality fast fashion made under dubious (or at least, opaque) conditions…we were forced to chant the company’s “mission statement” at the beginning of every all hands meeting.  And it was something like “we are on a mission to help every woman live her best life.” But apparently #girlboss didn’t apply to the employees or the women sewing the clothes the company sold. In fact, while Nasty Gal rarely pulled any fundraiser shenanigans, it was coasting off of the goodwill of Sophia Amoruso’s Girl Boss book…meaning that lots of customers thought they were buying into some kind of cause (white feminism?) with every purchase. Pretty silly in retrospect.  But here’s a less ridiculous example: even at the feminist brand where we were donating 1% of sales of feminist tees to Planned Parenthood…wouldn’t it have been far more impactful for the company to have given its employees health insurance? A parental leave policy? Real desks and chairs (not weird wobbly stools from Ikea)? A work life balance and a positive working environment?  Creating good jobs that made people feel healthy and engaged would have done more for the world than writing a check for a few thousand dollars at the end of the year that was just a drop in the bucket for a large organization like Planned Parenthood. Putting effort into cultivating a supply chain that provided safe, dignified work for the people sewing those feminist tees would have created more impact.  And it probably would have meant more to customers, too. It definitely would have been more feminist, right?  In fact, any time a retail company is doing a giveback campaign of some sort, I’m like “what about your retail workers? What about your warehouse workers? What about your factories? Start by caring for those people properly…and then you won’t need to trick us into buying stuff from your latest cause washing campaign, because we will know that you are the right place to spend money for things we need.”   Because that’s the thing about cause marketing: it’s not charity. It’s marketing.

While we are here talking about companies pledging a portion of sales to charity, let’s talk about 1% For The Planet…an international organization whose members contribute at least one percent of their annual revenue to environmental causes.  1% for the planet was founded by Yvon Chouinard (he’s the founder of Patagonia) and Craig Mathews in 2002.  Member companies pledge to donate 1% of their annual sales (not profits) to environmental nonprofits that have been approved by the organization. Part of that 1% of sales donation is annual dues to the organization, to cover operating expenses.  This also gives these companies the right to use the 1% For The Planet logo on their websites.

I will say that 1% For The Planet is not sketchy or even a bad thing…but like a lot of cause marketing, the impact is maybe not that significant (and that logo can give brands a powerful greenwashing shield).  First off, 1% of sales just isn’t that much money (and large companies could likely donate more).  1% of a million dollars is $10,000. And while I would love for someone to give me $10K, it often doesn’t do much on charitable donation level (but surely would have some significant impact from a mutual aid perspective).   Next, it shifts the focus from the real environmental impact of many businesses…where a better use of their resources would be cleaning up their supply chain, mitigating their plastic pollution, cutting their carbon footprint, taking care of their employees, etc. A company could open their own landfill, fill it with plastic, set it on fire, then stop paying all of their employees…and still keep that 1% for the planet “certification.” 

I see a lot less “buy this and we’ll donate that” campaigns these days…but you know what I see everywhere (even at Taco Bell)? “Would you like to round up your total to support XYZ?” It happens at checkouts–even self checkout and online. And it’s lowkey the laziest form of cause marketing.

Before I unpack the extremely valid criticism of these “round up” campaigns, I have to say that I’m not even sure if they do a lot from an emotional branding perspective for the companies running them.  Like, I don’t think more highly of Taco Bell because it has a scholarship program?  And furthermore, because these round ups seem to be happening EVERY WHERE…people are generally feeling bored/fatigued by them…and kinda annoyed by the pressure to say yes, lest they appear selfish.  It’s lowkey more like awkwardness and social coercion than genuine charitable giving. Super manipulative and when you get down to brass tacks…why isn’t the company (who once again, has wayyyy more resources than any of us) just making a donation. 

So if customers are generally not into these round up campaigns, why are companies doing them? Well, for one, I think sometimes the leadership of these companies is just way out of touch with the reality of the world around them.  The recent Sydney Sweeney/American Eagle campaign is a great example.  I highly doubt that the company was trying to make a grand Nazi/eugenics statement. The founder and CEO of the company is Jewish.  But what I think did happen is that at least one person in one meeting said, “Hey, I think this campaign might be inappropriate (especially now) and here’s why.” And everyone in charge was like, “oh, you’re always so woke and you worry too much.” Because I’ve been that person in so many meetings in my life.  Like when Nasty Gal produced an entire collection of Chinese cosplay clothing (essentially) and then did a photo shoot in Chinatown (and included an elderly Chinese-American woman as a prop).  Or when another employer did a whole campaign with slogans like “We are all black,” “We are all immigrants,” “We are all queer.”  Sometimes the people in charge just don’t want to hear that it’s a bad idea.  And I think in many of these companies, executives are covering their ears when anyone suggests that these round up campaigns might be kinda dunzo.

But these companies are also thinking:

• We are going to get great PR and generate so much goodwill for collecting money at checkout.
• We get this image boost with minimal investment on our end. Like maybe we have to make some signs and we have to pressure our store staff to collect donations.  But that’s it.
• And maybe we can get people to give us their email addresses while they are making a donation.
• Here’s the benefit that these companies do NOT get (AND PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS VC ANDREWS, STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION ABOUT THIS ON SOCIAL MEDIA): Companies do not get to write off the donations from these round up campaigns on their taxes.  Period.  If say the company raises $10,000 from a campaign and decides to throw in a $1000 of their own money…then they CAN write off the $1000, but that’s it.  Meanwhile, if a company is doing a “1% of profits” or “a portion of sales” fundraiser, they CAN write off that donation on their taxes.  You know those signs people have outside their houses that are like “in this home we believe in science, etc?” Well Clotheshorse would have a sign that says, “In this community, we know that it’s cheap because someone didn’t get paid, unskilled labor is a classist myth, there’s no such thing as bad taste, free shipping isn’t free, putting your jeans in the freezer doesn’t clean them, and companies don’t get to write off the donation you made when your rounded up your total at checkout.”

And btw, believe it or not, that horrible American Eagle campaign was also cause marketing because a portion of the sales of a specific pair of butterfly jeans were going to be donated to a domestic violence charity…that just got lost in the sauce of a really, really stupid idea.

The “round up” version of cause marketing has all of the same drawbacks as any other cause marketing campaign:

• Brands cherry pick charities that are most appealing and least controversial.
• The timeline of when the actual donation is made is kinda unclear.
• These donations may not be very impactful.
• Businesses shouldn’t serve as intermediaries for charitable giving (it’s kinda weird when you think about it).
• And of course, why aren’t these companies just donating that money themselves? 

Okay, we’re going to round up (jk, round OUT) this episode by talking for a few minutes about B Corp certification, which is another creation of the cause marketing/triple bottom line/brand with a “mission” era of the 00s and 2010s.  A few weeks ago–within minutes of one another–I read a post on Reddit where someone declared that they only shopped from B Corporations…and then an article about how fast fashion brand Princess Polly had just attained B Corp certification..and I thought my brain might just explode.

B Corp certification is granted by a nonprofit organization called B Lab, which was founded in 2006.  The first 82 B Corps were certified in 2007.  And for a long time, it really stood for something because it means that companies met verified standards of social and environmental responsibility, accountability, and transparency. Certified companies must score 80+ points on B Lab’s assessment and legally commit to considering stakeholders beyond shareholders.

Earlier this year, Dr Bronner’s made headlines by releasing a statement explaining why it would no longer be renewing its B Corp certification, saying, “The integrity of the B Corp Certification has become compromised and remaining certified now contradicts our mission.

The increasing certification of multinationals including Unilever Australia and Nespresso in 2022 followed by Nestle Health Sciences in 2023 demonstrated that B Lab is not committed to protecting the integrity of the B Corp Certification and movement, nor ensuring that the certification won’t be used to mislead consumers.”  This was not completely a surprise to B Lab, because Dr Bronner’s (along with a long list of other B Corps) had published an open letter expressing concerns about B Lab certifying companies that frankly should not have been certified.  At that point, Nespresso had just been granted B Corp status. And the letter calls out why that is such a problem: “Although Nespresso has achieved the minimum currently required for certification, scoring 84 out of 200 points, Nespresso’s abysmal track record on human rights from child labor and wage theft to abuse of factory workers is well documented by the media and NGOs.  Indeed, Nespresso’s extractive business model is publicly known to be fundamentally at odds with the ethical and just future B Corps want to build and should have structurally been a barrier to Nespresso’s B Corp Certification…Instead, the fact that Nespresso can achieve a score that allows them to be Certified as a B Corp and use the Certification to greenwash its business model and practices demonstrates that the B Impact Assessment scoring system and certification process is in serious need of repair.” And to be clear: not only were the signors of this letter concerned about child labor, forced labor, and wage theft in Nespresso’s supply chain…they were also concerned about a company that makes most of its revenue from selling single use coffee pods.  

Now, I posted about this on Instagram the same day that I saw Princess Polly had also achieved B Corp status…which um, fast fashion should NEVER be able to pass that certification.  Someone really came for me, accusing me of not doing my research when it came to the Nespresso pods…which actually means two things: 1. That person didn’t do THEIR research and 2. Nespresso’s greenwashing  is so convincing that it makes people show up to fight with strangers on the internet…which we know means that the emotional branding is really effective. 

The fact is that per Nespresso itself, only about a ⅓ of their coffee pods are ever recycled.  And that number has not been independently verified by anyone.  Other experts think the recycling rate is actually more like 5%! The pods are made of complex layers that mean regular municipal recycling facilities cannot handle them…so they must be sent to Nespresso by customers. And of course, most are not doing that. Furthermore, these pods tend to grow mold because of …well, wet coffee grounds…and that renders them unrecyclable, too.

To put this into perspective, a 2020 Guardian article calculated “with a conservative estimate of 14 billion capsules being sold each year, and 0.9 grams of aluminium per capsule, that means 12,600 tonnes of Nespresso aluminium end up in landfill annually, enough for 60 Statues of Liberty.”

Furthermore, the crux of Nespresso’s more “premium” branding and greenwashing claims is that because these pods are made of aluminium, not plastic (like Keurig), they are all around better in every way.  But actually mining aluminum is a resource intensive process that creates toxic byproducts in the process.  I’m going to link to an article from Fair World Project about Nespresso that includes this zinger about Nespresso’s partnership with mining company Rio Tinto:

“Rio Tinto is a mining giant dubbed ‘a poster child for corporate malfeasance’ for their lengthy rap sheet of environmental, labor and human rights violations as well as corruption and bribery.” 

Oh that’s cool.

Wait…why are strangers ready to fight me about Nespresso on the internet? Sick branding, that’s right. Ah okay.

Nespresso is the most controversial company to receive B Corp status, but like I said, they have also given that certification to a literal fast fashion company…and several MLMs!!!

And these controversial choices are indicative of much of the criticism (or at least skepticism) B Lab has been facing for the past few years:

• B Corp certification relies on self-assessment, which means companies can spin the data kinda however they want. This means that they can avoid bigger, more complex issues within their business practices, while spotlighting smaller, less significant wins.
• Because companies only have to provide a snapshot score every three years (also, that score–once again–is self assessed), it means they can do whatever sketchy shit they want in the years in between.
• B Lab itself has never been accredited by a third party organization, which has raised concerns that maybe certifications are not being granted consistently (bending the rules for some) or even if funds from the certification fees are being used appropriately.
• And while losing B Corp certification could be embarrassing, there are no real repercussions for losing it (and why would you when you’re the one grading yourself).
• Lastly–but definitely not leastly–at this point it seems like B Corp certification is a great way to greenwash the rest of your business because people just assume that you must be doing great things.  Nespresso is an extreme example of this, but what about the other big companies who have managed to be certified.

I do want to take a moment here to say that there are plenty of amazing companies who are doing things the right way because they genuinely care that have B Corp certification…but there also many who do not because the process to be certified (that self assessment process) is intense and does cost money and time that many businesses cannot afford.  In 2018, I worked with a client who was working on B Corp certification and it was intense. Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) had to be documented, from the kinds of towels being used to clean the bathroom at the office to transparency into pay structures, ensuring that no one was being paid less due to gender, race, or disability. This company was amazing and already super sustainability minded, but even they had to make some changes to get the certification. And they were paying me and other staff members to work on the self assessment, which took months.  That work cost the company money!

Whether its Nespresso and its B Corp certification, feminist tees with a giveback, or even asking to round up your purchase at Petco…the intention is always clear: creating more good vibes with customers, in hopes of gaining some loyalty (and maybe even motivating someone to defend your business on the internet). And  you know what? It works!

Although maybe now, it’s starting to lose its luster? Like a lot of things we talk about here on Clotheshorse, most people don’t really know about cause marketing and its real impact. That’s where we come in…we can talk with them about these things in a non-judgemental, super kind way. There’s no shame in being sort of beguiled by cause marketing…because it’s  a proven successful technique for marketing a brand.  And for those of us who know the full story, it’s kinda our job to share what we know with others. So get out there and tell people about cause marketing!