Cause to Celebrate Some PR firms strive to make a difference by promoting causes as well as products.

Give a PR firm an Enron to represent, and that firm quickly hasa PR nightmare on its hands. Assign a breast-cancer researchorganization to the same firm, and the PR job becomes a biteasier.

Whether it has to do with the Enrons and the Martha Stewarts ofthe world--and the need to renew public trust in business--orwhether promotional agents simply want to do good, marketingwith a conscience is becoming more the rule than the exception. Asbusinesses zero in on social issues, including everything fromenvironmental protection and the peace movement to education andpublic health issues, so, too, do PR and advertising firms."There's a much deeper awareness that business cannot bedivorced from values," says Shel Horowitz, a Hadley,Massachusetts, author of several marketing books, includingPrincipled Profit: Marketing That Puts PeopleFirst. "[Consumers] are realizing [they] have thepower and the right to demand accountability. Businesses arerealizing it's smart to have good principles."

Maria Rodriguez, 45, knew that from the day she startedWashington, DC-based Vanguard Communications in 1987. She launchedwith the sole intent of aligning herself with social concerns, suchas environmental protection and health issues. (Farm Aid is aclient.)

It's an MO that's proved effective, both from a businessand a personal perspective: "We can feel good at the end ofthe day," says Rodriguez, who projects 2005 sales of just over$4 million. "We never have any second thoughts about whatwe're promoting."

That kind of selling can lead to what Michael Martin calls"effect marketing"--positively affecting a cause throughmarketing. "That's the future of marketing, because peoplesee through crass 'Buy Me! Buy Me! Buy Me!'[campaigns]," says the 44-year-old founder and president ofMusicMatters, a Minneapolis company created in 1997 to promotecauses by combining pop culture, marketing and social activism.MusicMatters promoted the One Sweet Whirled international globalwarming campaign, created with Dave Matthews Band, Ben &Jerry's and SaveOurEnvironment.org.

This convergence of grass-roots activism with more advancedmarketing methods is what makes social marketing effective."Done right, it can help to increase sales, provide motivationfor consumers to buy and increase brand identity," saysMartin, whose company averages 20 percent growth annually. And asfor the intangible? "Done right, you can generatechange."