Recently, Stella Artios has partnered with Water.org and is donating a portion of retail sales to the organization. With each purchase of a case of Stella Artois, the brand will donate enough to Water.org to give one person access to water for 6 months. I was very intrigued by this so I dug deeper into the fine print, and found that the actual amount they are donating is roughly 30 cents per case. At first, I felt like this was just another marketing ploy to make the brand’s donation sound much better than it is. It made more sense from Stella’s perspective to show the outcome of their donation (6 months of water for one person) instead of the input (30 cents) but it seemed like they were being deceptive. People would likely not even look twice at a brand who is donating 30 cents on a purchase that costs the consumer over 30 dollars, but hearing that they will be giving 6 months of clean drinking water to someone is much more intriguing to a conscious consumer. Upon further thought, however, I understand why a simple donation with purchase is a prime example of creating shared value. It is much easier for Stella to donate a portion of their sales to another organization, like Water.org, that already has the infrastructure in place to utilize the funds much better than Stella could. Stella would see the increase in brand reputation, increased sales, and can feel good about what they are doing, while Water.org is able to help those without in need of clean drinking water. I currently have a project with Corona, which is owned by Labatt, the same parent company as Stella Artois. Part of our project is to come up with tactics and activations that include some sort of social or sustainable cause, similar to Stella’s Water.org partnership. Keep your eyes out, hopefully Corona will implement our recommendations for cause marketing!
Here is a link to the Stella Artois Water.org website, where you can buy chalices to support someone without access to clean drinking water for 5 years!