Cause-related marketing sounds like a "touchy feely" 1990s idea but it is increasingly becoming an important weapon in brand wars, with more and more commercial products being linked to a charity or non-profit organisation.

It is described as a classic "win-win" situation, with the brand benefiting from the positive associations that being seen to support a charity brings, while the charity benefits through receiving hard cash.

A study in the US showed that up to 82 per cent of consumers say that when price and quality are equal they would buy from the company that demonstrated a sincere commitment to social causes. One of the most successful cause-related marketing initiatives in Ireland is the UNICEF Change for Good campaign, which the charity runs in association with Aer Lingus. The campaign celebrates its second anniversary next week and donations have now reached $1 million.

Just before landing, cabin crew hand out special UNICEF envelopes and passengers are encouraged to donate the foreign coins left over from their trip.

Twenty per cent of Aer Lingus passengers donate money in this way, compared to a response rate of just 6 per cent on British Airways. In all, 18 airlines worldwide participate in the scheme and Aer Lingus is the fifth-highest earning airline in the world for UNICEF.

"From the passengers' point of view it is lost money, money that they would never spend anyway," says Ms Maura Quinn of UNICEF. "And our envelopes are designed to show how valuable even small amounts of money are to our work."

UNICEF developed the Change for Good campaign in the early 1980s and according to Ms Quinn part of its success is that the charity is an international brand name. "As a charity we get far more approaches from commercial companies looking to work with us than we agree to," she says, "and uppermost in our minds in agreeing to such a cause-related marketing initiative is the need to protect our own brand."