• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer @mahoney_sarah, September 2, 2015

It’s no secret that as cause-related marketing becomes more common, it gets more invisible, too.

And that’s a challenge: While people increasingly expect brands to do some good in the world, it’s harder for them to get noticed. That’s why it’s so baffling to see brands continue to behave like pink, yellow, or red-ribboned lemmings, piling on the safest, most plain-vanilla causes they can find.

Wouldn’t it be nice if causes had a little more edge? A little bit of bite? 

I’m asking for two reasons. One is that October is around the corner, and my inbox is already turning pink. As brands continue to align with breast-cancer efforts, they seem less sincere than usual and—on the heels of the latest research—probably more misguided, too. 

The other is that I came across an impressive case study for Guess Jeans, which recently took on a more controversial cause and came out with a win. In an effort to stop sexual assault, it created its own Denim Day last spring, mounting an extensive Facebook campaign in Italy. The new effort is based on an old story: Back in the 1990s, when model Claudia Schiffer was still appearing in its super-sexy ads and most of its current customers were still bambinos, an Italian supreme court ruled overturned a rape conviction. Since the victim’s jeans were so tight, they reasoned, she must have helped the assailant remove them, making the assault consensual. Women in the Italian Parliament wore jeans to work the next day in a show of support.

Guess, which knows more than most about tight jeans, took the cause on in the U.S. in 2014, and hired Brand Networks to create the Italian social campaign this year. It included awareness ads, a pledge to wear denim, and a final phase showing celebs and activists showing their support. The effort made 22 million ad impressions and had 500,000 Facebook ad engagements in two weeks.

Brand Networks CEO Jamie Tedford says the campaign worked well because of Guess’ sexy-britches authenticity. “There are very few brands who could have aligned with this cause as effectively as Guess,” he says.

Still, it wasn’t without risks, says Simona Marmina, Brand Network’s director of customer success. “Sexual assault is a sensitive subject, and you never know how the Internet is going to react.” Overwhelmingly, fashionistas and activists alike had generally positive feedback: “We hadn’t specifically asked them to upload pictures of themselves in denim, for example, but many did.”

By comparison, of course, those numbers can’t hold a candle to Lee National Denim Day, a 20-year-old pink-themed event that has raised more than $93 million for breast cancer awareness. This year, it’s scheduled for Oct. 2. And while it may seem safe to continue to run the same promotion, year after year, there are risks there, too. 

For one thing, the breast-cancer audience is more sophisticated (and wary) than it used to be. The cause still hasn’t quite recovered from the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s PR gaffe-of-the-decade back in 2012. But for another, much of the energy that poured into the pink stampede over the years has been based on the belief that early detection and treatment saves lives. Turns out, experts now say that isn’t necessarily true. (The most recent bombshell, widely reported in the consumer press, is in a recent issue of JAMA Oncology.)

Of course, until there’s a cure, women will care about breast cancer. But today’s consumers will happily embrace a whole rainbow of cause efforts (you remember all those rainbows back in June, right?). They’d like to help cure lots of cancer. Heart disease. Diabetes. They’d like to end hunger and bullying. And I bet they’re even pen-minded to brands aligning themselves with hot-button issues like rape prevention, addiction and mental illnesses. This year, I hope more brands think beyond the pink.