Give Smart, Episode 10
Cause marketing campaigns often start with a great idea from marketing. Then legal gets pulled in and has to figure out whether the campaign can actually launch.
In this episode of Give Smart, Erica Zaragoza, an in-house legal leader at Publishers Clearing House, joins Change to talk about how legal teams can work with marketing, social impact, and other internal partners to bring charitable campaigns to life.
One of the clearest themes from the conversation is that legal works best when it is involved before the campaign is already fully formed.
For a purchase-linked charitable campaign, seemingly simple decisions can affect the legal and operational requirements: which nonprofit is involved, how the donation is calculated, where the campaign will run, how long it lasts, and what customers are told.
Getting those details early gives legal teams more room to help shape the campaign instead of reviewing everything at the last minute.
Erica walks through the kinds of information that help in-house counsel evaluate a campaign, including:
That information helps legal determine what agreements, registrations, disclosures, and other requirements may apply.
It also helps prevent one of the most common problems in cause marketing: different teams working from different versions of the campaign.
The episode also highlights the role in-house legal can play beyond simply approving or rejecting a campaign.
When legal understands the business objective, the team can often help find a workable path forward. That might mean adjusting campaign language, changing timing, narrowing the states involved, or helping marketing understand which pieces need to be finalized before launch.
The goal is not to eliminate every idea that creates complexity. It is to give teams enough clarity to make informed decisions and launch with fewer surprises.
For companies that run charitable promotions regularly, the process can become much easier over time.
Templates, clear intake questions, established nonprofit relationships, and a repeatable compliance process can reduce the amount of work required for each new campaign.
Change supports companies running commercial co-ventures with tools for registrations, campaign records, renewals, reporting, and other compliance workflows. You can learn more about our commercial co-venturer solution.
The broader takeaway from Erica’s conversation is simple: cause marketing works better when legal is treated as part of the campaign team from the beginning.
Watch the full episode above to hear Erica share her perspective on working in-house, collaborating with marketing teams, and navigating the legal side of charitable campaigns.
Explore more conversations with legal, impact, and technology leaders in the Give Smart video series.
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