Halos? Really?

Corporate people tend to see cause marketing (when corporations and businesses align themselves with a cause or charity - like the partnership between McDonalds' and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital) as a great beneficial relationship, one that raises money and positive notoriety for the cause and boosts goodwill (and thus possibly sales) toward the corporation.

I've heard non-corporate people make scathing remarks about cause marketing as an empty, shallow ploy that exploits charity for the corporation's own gain.

I don't think it's ever so black-and-white, 100% of the time. I don't doubt that there are some businesses that, were cause marketing a nonexistent concept, are truly driven by selfish (or at the least, ignorant) people who would see no reason to help others if it doesn't help them -- but there are others that would engage in charitable practices anyway, because it's the right and socially responsible thing to do.

And I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a corporate marketing director working on cause marketing who is sniggering greedily about what an unwitting tool their charity is.

I do admit that it feels a bit odd to have a ceremony to "hand out the halos;" that seems taking it a bit far...but if cause marketing benefits a cause that could use the help (as most all causes could), does it matter if the company's intentions are less than purely altruistic?