Cause Marketing is Good... But....

It's become more and more common to hear of a large corporation creating a relationship with a charity. Usually the company agrees to give some money to the charity based on the sale of a particular product.
While I applaud any support of charity, this concept, called, cause marketing is not as altruistic as you might think.

For the next month, Starbucks will give 5 cents from each sale of three special RED drinks – Peppermint Mocha Twist, Gingersnap Latte and Espresso Truffle – to the global fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. These are seasonal drinks from the coffee company. It's worth noting that the selected items are not the chain's top sellers.

I have no idea how much money the program will generate. Let's say 100,000,00 cups are sold, which would produce $5,000,000. While it's a great donation, keep in mind that the promotion has given the company a ton of free advertising in newspapers as well as on radio and TV stations. And even with the recent closure of 600 stores, Starbucks still has more than 7,000 stores in the US alone. So if you divide my projected yield from the charity promotion, then it's costing the company about $715 a store. For a mega company, that's not a huge amount of money. (My figures may be low but I think you get the idea.)

Again, any kind of giving is good but often corporate charity is more about marketing than giving.