Bono's gone red to fight AIDs in Africa, and so has Apple, Gap and American Express.

Macy's is pushing red too, but it has joined a different fight - heart-disease awareness for women. And everyone from Kitchenaid to Kellogg's is peddling pink for breast cancer.

Whether it's red or pink or one of the other colours on the non-profit palette, cause marketing is one of the hottest trends going, says Jocelyne Daw, author of Cause Marketing for Non-Profits: Partner for Purpose, Passion and Profits.

Daw, who defines cause marketing as "a company putting the power of its marketing, its brand and its people behind a cause to showcase what they stand for in both the marketplace and the workplace," says consumers are driving the trend.

Brian O'Leary

"You take a look at some of the scandals in the corporate sector in the last few years - people are saying: 'I want to know what a company stands for,' " she says.

In fact, according to research conducted by Boston-based Cone, a strategy and communications agency, eight out of 10 Americans say that corporate support of causes wins their trust in a company.

A case in point: Last month, Campbell's stepped up its cause marketing campaign in the U.S. by replacing its famous red and white labels with pink and white labels on two of its best-selling soups. As a result, sales to its biggest grocery store customer, Kroger, doubled for the month of October.

But cause marketing has a side that isn't so rosy, according to Samantha King, an associate professor at Queen's University who recently wrote Pink Ribbons Inc., a controversial new book that shines a light on the breast-cancer movement, challenging its commercialization.

In the book, King argues that companies are not only profiting from aligning themselves with breast-cancer awareness, they are painting an inaccurate picture of the disease.

"They are not showing the ugly side of the disease - the fact that people die from the disease," she says. "Corporations are trying to sell products, and death doesn't sell," she says.

According to King, corporations that tie their good intention to their bottom line really limit what they can do and what they can say about the disease or cause with which they have chosen to align themselves.

In the case of breast cancer, companies are not only sugar-coating the disease, they are also promoting consumerism (i.e. shopping) as a way to donate to a cause, she says. And she has a problem with that.

"It is a symptom of a broader downsizing or privatizing of political and civic engagement, so that we the public feel that buying things is an effective way of making possible social change, and that is really limited."

She says corporations generally spend more money on promoting their Pink Ribbon campaigns than they end up donating to the cause. She also points out that despite the enormous amount of money that has been raised for breast cancer, little has changed in the way of incidence.

"That is going to stay the same unless we make prevention a priority," she says, pointing out that some companies in the Pink Ribbon campaign have products that are linked to breast cancer.

King doesn't deny that when it comes to cause marketing, corporations have good intentions. However, in her ideal world, companies wouldn't market their involvement with charities and would instead give anonymously.

"When you tie your citizenship practices to your profit-making, it really limits the effectiveness of your participation," she says.

Daw doesn't agree. She says cause marketing creates awareness, and that's a good thing for any cause. "Smart non-profits understand that this is an opportunity for them to get their message out to an audience they would never reach on their own," she says. "If you think back 10 years ago, talking about breast cancer wasn't something a lot of people felt comfortable doing.

"People didn't know much about it. An effective cause-marketing program can really help a non-profit advance its mission."

She claims it's not just consumers that are driving the cause-marketing trend; the workforce is also playing a big role, she says.

According to Daw, employees do not want to have to check their values at the door when they get hired.

They want to work for companies whose values are true to their own.

"It's all about employee pride," she says.

And that's exactly what Calgary law firm Burnet, Duckworth and Palmer got when it hooked up with Habitat for Humanity.

Brian O'Leary, a partner with Burnet, Duckworth and Palmer, explains that for the past five years the company has offered free legal services to Habitat for Humanity and also has volunteered its staff to help build homes for Habitat for Humanity. So far the firm has built five.

O'Leary says it has been a great team-building exercise for employees, and excellent for the company's reputation.

"We are considered to be one of the best places to work because of our community involvement. Staff love that we are so active in the community on these issues," he says.

The firm has promoted its involvement with the non-profit in a catchy billboard campaign across the city of Calgary.

"We had an amazing response. People started associating us with Habitat for Humanity," says O'Leary.

Aside from getting a positive reaction from fellow lawyers and other professionals, clients were also giving rave reviews.

"Our clients were calling us and asking how they could do what we were doing. Huge oil companies, a gyprock company ... It just all seemed to mushroom," says O'Leary.

He doesn't deny that the Habitat for Humanity is not the only one reaping benefits from the billboard campaign.

"This is raising the profile of Burnet, Duckworth and Palmer in the community and there is a benefit to that, because more people become aware of us and maybe they will use our services, but I think that is secondary to what we are trying to do," he says.

According to O'Leary, promoting the law firm's involvement with Habitat for Humanity has helped to raise awareness for the cause and has encouraged the community to get involved.

"There is a real benefit in using your name on a cause. It raises awareness and it eggs on your competitors and others in your community to do the same. When you attach your name to something you give it validity," he says.

(Christina Friedrichsen can be reached at friedrichsen@businessedge.ca)