Starting Conversations about Marketing and Purpose

Monthly Archives: January 2008

A good place to go for SRI info

Posted on January 27, 2008 in Socially Responsible Investing (SRI)

After the flu and a rather busy start into the New Year, I am just now getting a new post out…  

 One area I wanted to look deeper into for the New Year is socially responsible investing (SRI).  This trend just continues to build globally as fund companies open up new SRI funds every day.   socialfunds.com is a site I can recommend as a starting point.   From what I can gather, socialfunds.com is one of the SRI world group websites.  SRI world group is a company based out of Vermont, a seriously green state. 

Once institutional investors start to seriously demand better standards and deeper levels of accountability at Fortune 500 companies, I think we will see SRI kick into another gear and socially responsible investing will move to another level as we close the decade.  It may take an external event, like another big climate catastrophy in the US or W. Europe to reach this new level, but we are getting closer all the time.  SRI will be a very interesting space to watch in 08  

In closing, it seems even seeing hedge funds get heavily into the game now!  I just did some Google SRI searching and found a Swiss SRI Hedge fund advertising.  Of course, entry into this fund is only 500,000…but hey, once Hedge funds start doing this, watch out SRI world!  Your time is arriving.   

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How will cause marketing grow in 08?

Posted on January 4, 2008 in Causes

Happy new year everyone!  How far has cause marketing come in the last few years?   According to the IEG Sponsorship Report, US Sponsorship spending on cause marketing will hit $1.50 billion in 2008.  That number sounds pretty good, however, it does appear that the heady days of high double digit growth are slowing…2008 spend growth is predicted to be around 4.4% as Sports sponsorship will likely have a strong year (Olympics???).  Over the last few years, cause sponsorship has grown as follows (again from IEG Sponsorship Report):

2007 — $1.44 billion, 10.4% growth
2006 — $1.34 billion, 20.2% growth
2005 — $1.17 billion, 18.4% growth
2004 — $988 million, 7.2% growth
2003 — $922 million, 6.3% growth
2002 — $816 million, 13% growth

Just a note, Back in 1990, cause sponsorship spending was only $120 million. Projected spending and category share in 2008 are:

  1. Sports: $11.6 billion, 69%
  2. Entertainment Tours/Attractions: $1.61 billion, 10%
  3. Causes: $1.50 billion, 9%
  4. Arts: $832 million, 5%
  5. Festivals, fairs, annual events: $754 million, 4%
  6. Associations, membership orgs: $482 million, 3%

Just a reminder as to how far cause spend has come…back in 1990, cause sponsorship spend was only $120 million!!! I believe it will not be long until causes reach the #2 position.

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