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Supported charities:
In the industry, distributor Brand Fuel supports
both PromoKitchen and Promotional Products Education Foundation (PPEF),
both dedicated to education. The company’s commitment to PPEF has been
bolstered through helping to create distributor group Reciprocity Road,
which also gives back to PPEF. Outside the industry, Brand Fuel supports
whatever cause its team gets most excited about, including Band Together
NC, an annual music fundraising event that Danny Rosin, CAS, co-founded
on September 11, 2001, which has been a mainstay in the company’s giving
program because of its unique model of supporting a different nonprofit
annually. Ben Folds headlines this year’s May 6 concert that has raised
more than $1 million for a new YMCA facility in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Program structure:
Employees receive paid time off for volunteering
in the community. They also receive a monthly stipend for wellness, which
often includes supporting nonprofits, where the employees, not owners,
decide what causes to support. Staffers who are involved or invested in
company initiatives often receive added perks, like tickets to a concert. Brand
Fuel offers free nonprofit marketing advice and has converted marketing
dollars that once went to client end-user shows into support for local causes
through volunteer activities with its clients. Of course, the company includes
promotional giveaways to complement the sense of community giving.
Like You Give A Damn
, says there’s
been a massive awakening in social
consciousness in the past couple years.
In his 2017 SXSW session, Good Is The
New Cool, he said, “…In a world that’s
obsessed with celebrity culture and
shallowness, meaningfulness has now
started to become really important.
Purpose has started to become really
important …Brands are starting to think
about their place in the world and how
they can balance their need to make a
profit but also do something positive
for their community and…for the
planet as well.”
General Mills’s new marketing effort
for Cheerios is a perfect example
of balancing profit and planet. This
spring the company removed its iconic
BuzzBee character from Honey Nut
Cheerios boxes (a blank silhouette
remains) to call attention to the
worldwide disappearance of honeybees,
which are important plant pollinators.
With the social media campaign
hashtag #BringBackTheBees, the
company created a dedicated landing
page on the Cheerios website for visitors
to learn about the campaign and to
order free wildflower seeds to plant
in their own backyards to give bees
access to wildflower nectar and pollen.
By utilizing cross-marketing channels
to increase engagement, the brand is
getting the most out of its campaign—
which the company hopes will increase
sales
and
the honeybee population.
PPB
spoke with a sampling of
industry companies that are committed
to charitable giving to learn more about
their efforts—and to hear about the
positive results they see both in the
organizations they support and in their
own businesses.
From their impassioned responses,
it’s clear that doing good really
is
the
new cool. Read on for their inspiring
stories and for simple tips on how your
company can be a force for doing good.
Brand Fuel employees (L-R) Renee Holmes, Alex Stowe, Bridget Ray, John Griffin, Ryan Mensch,
Brooks Walker, Jessie Bryan and co-owner Danny Rosin, CAS, supported the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s
Backpack Buddies Program at Trophy Brewing Co. in January by inviting clients to a BrandGood event
that included handcrafted brew and a little hustle to fill backpacks with healthy weekend meals and
snacks for children of food-insecure homes.
BRAND FUEL
FEATURE
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The Heroes Among Us
28
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MAY 2017
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