Fresh Breath Makes the World a Better Place

 

What does minty fresh breath have to do with giving third world children the chance to play sports? Not much, as far as I can tell, but that’s not stopping Listerine from leveraging their ties to Olympic athletes (the Hamm brothers, gymnastic medal hopefuls) in this online campaign. They are offering to donate one dollar for every click on a big red ball to the “Red Ball Child Play” program. They are capping the donation at $100,000, and are currently at 73,000 clicks (which doesn’t seem like all that many clicks, but that’s another topic).

 

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this effort. It’s obviously a worthy cause, and Attention Shoppers! has discussed successful cause related marketing a number of times in the past. It is a growing part of CPG marketing efforts–and for good reason. It’s just that, in this case, the link between halitosis and kids playing sports in poor countries is not all that clear.