Sometimes good companies make bad decisions much too often in their marketing messages. Thousands of companies have joined in to promote Breast Cancer Awareness in the month of October and then use that support as a way to promote their own community message. This year, as reported by USA Today (October 5, 2010), alcohol marketers are using the pink link to breast cancer as a marketing message. Such actions make for a prime case study for bad marketing decisions.
Marketing Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Companies, nonprofit organizations, celebrities, news organizations, and popular television shows such as Ellen (NBC) promote the basics of breast cancer awareness month and going pink for the month. Consumers get involved and make contributions through many retail shopping opportunities such as buying T-shirts, lip gloss and other items.
This year, many alcohol producers have gone pink. As reported by USA Today, Mike’s Hard Lemonade is just one of those producers using a pink drink to sell more alcohol. The company told USA Today that the idea to go pink was generated by the loss of an employee to cancer. Other marketing attempts using a go pink to support breast cancer awareness include:
- Putting pink ribbons on pink wines
- Chambord markets pink vodka and liqueurs
While the companies have given money to breast cancer causes, the problem is that both the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute say that even a moderate amount of alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer.
Shameful Marketing Messages
“Anybody trying to sell alcohol to promote breast cancer awareness should be ashamed of themselves,” Barbara Benner, executive director of Breast Cancer Action told USA Today.
Connecting a company to a community cause is a well known practice and is one that should continue. When a company joins a community issue, they want to promote themselves as part of that cause. But, as in all things reasonable, there should be a line drawn in the marketing plan when promoting the company and the contributions made to certain causes.
If the companies producing alcohol want to contribute monies to breast cancer research, it can be and should be done behind the scenes and without any consumer interaction. Selling pink drinks to consumers as a way to raise money for a contribution is the wrong message.
Instead of promoting a good cause with a good actions and good messages, with this kind of action, the public relations crisis management messages will soon have to come front and center.
All Publicity is Good Publicity
Not sure the old adage “there is no bad publicity” applies to this particular situation. There just is no good way to defend a marketing message that misleads people into thinking that buying alcohol is a good way to make a contribution to cancer research or a good way to show support for all those who have been challenged, suffered, survived, or in so many cases succumbed to cancer. It is much like tobacco companies marketing their support of lung cancer research.
Click here for more information on Breast Cancer Awareness month.
