Great marketing, better cause

As I’m sure most people have figure out, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, which, in my opinion, is simply a marketing ploy to sell women more stuff and make them feel less guilty about it. Don’t get me wrong, I fully support breast cancer research and awareness-I just don’t think that’s what this campaign is really about.

Every year, retailers cash in on philanthropic females with a propensity for pink. Call me cynical if you want, but 10% of proceeds for one month on one randomly rose-hued item is not a very sizeable charitable contribution for most major brands. So really what they’re doing is making a whole bunch of normal stuff pink to designate them as breast cancer donation items, when in fact they are simply marketing to a large segment of the population who will buy anything because it’s pink, and have been tricked into thinking they are supporting a good cause.

So that’s my issue with using breast cancer to sell useless consumer products. Now, on to a much better use of your hard-earned money and our beloved internet-the Design-her-Gals Virtual Breast Cancer Walk. This walk benefits the Gal to Gal Foundation, which uses the funds to improve the lives of women diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, the most advanced and invasive type of breast cancer.

The Gal-to-Gal walk does several things very well, for fundraising and for the internet. First, they kept the donation low-$3 to register, with the option to donate more. Definitely doable for anybody with internet access.

Second, they created a virtual event, one of the next big things for the internet. These are really cool when they’re done well, really easy and very viral. Basically, a marketing hat trick. I’ve been pushing one of these types of events at the 9-to-5er, and this walk definitely validated my ideas.

Third, they made the site highly interactive and fun, encouraging people to come back every day to learn trivia on the city they’re “walking” through and search for friends, real or virtual. Both of these features give the site high word of mouth potential, which also raises their fundraising potential.

Finally, Gal-to-Gal cashed in on the avatar craze, a key part of any virtual event. Designing a little mini-you is fun; just look at the popularity of the South Park character generator or the Simpsons avatar creator. People love to look at themselves, and this is just another expression of that. Or, you can think of it as paper dolls for grown ups.

Either way, anything that lets people create virtual versions of themselves is almost sure to be a hit. Combine that with some social interaction and a cause people can get behind, and you have a nearly sure-fire marketing plan. The true test is whether it works in the real…er, virtual…world.