It’s a known fact that cause marketing is incredibly effective, when used well. However, the magnitude of harm it can cause when employed in an anything-but-noble fashion is much greater. 

An example here would be Kellogg’s recent “Give a Child a Breakfast” campaign in which it promised “1 RT = 1 breakfast for a vulnerable child”. While this campaign may have been rooted in genuine intentions, unsurprisingly, it did not resonate well with consumers.

Yes, this was a pretty stupid error of judgment on Kellogg’s part, but it’s nice to see that they were quick to respond, pretty much within the day. Of course, in this day and age you would expect any major brand to employ social media triage and have a crisis strategy in play.

Furthermore, after apologizing a second time, they did receive some more positive sentiment in replies showing that there is a lot of merit in simply being real. Consumers appreciated Kellogg’s ability to admitting to fault and not trying to “shift the blame”. Though, in the digital era, you’d be hard pressed to effectively sweep something under the rug, and this is forcing brands to become more (willingly) transparent.

To wrap up, maybe this wasn’t the most thought out marketing campaign, but at least Kelloggs was able to monitor conversations, sense the crisis and respond appropriately before the whole thing blew up. 

Main point: If you plan to engage in questionable marketing tactics, consider having a clear response strategy in place, to mitigate the damage it can cause. If this hadn’t been the case for Kellogs, the backlash could have been even further amplified