Statue of Liberty Restoration

Why it works

The campaign that gave 'cause-related marketing' its name. In the autumn of 1983 American Express promised a penny towards restoring the Statue of Liberty every time someone used its card, and a dollar for every new card issued, and backed the pledge with a national TV campaign costing an estimated $4 million — launched, the Christian Science Monitor noted, without the sanction of the official restoration foundation. The promotion raised $1.7 million for the statue's repair; card use rose 28% in the first month and new card applications jumped 45%. Jerry Welsh, the Amex marketing chief behind it, coined the term 'cause-related marketing', which the company went on to copyright, and a 1988 Journal of Marketing paper set the concept out for the discipline. It is studied as the moment philanthropy became a sales tool — proof that tying everyday spending to a shared cause could pay — and for the unease it raised about casting a national monument as a pitchwoman.