Case Study: McDonald’s Buy 1 Share 1 Program

Case Study: McDonald’s Buy 1 Share 1 Program

There is a staggering food gap among children in central North Carolina, especially during the summer months when school is not in session and they do not have access to free or reduced breakfast and lunches. With 1 in 4 children suffering from food insecurity in the area, our client, McDonald’s of the Triad, set out to raise the level of awareness and actively involve local customers to take part in providing a solution.

The Challenge

To address this issue, our client enlisted our help in bringing a regional McDonald’s initiative — the Buy One Share One Happy Meal® Campaign (B1S1) — to the Triad. While B1S1 isn’t something new for McDonald’s, we approached it from a slightly different angle. In most other markets, B1S1 runs during the months of November through December to provide meals to children during the holidays. However, we knew that in our area specifically, the larger need occurs during the summer since many local children rely on school-provided meals as a part of their daily nutritional intake. When school is out, they often go without a meal. So, to effectively address this need, we opted to run this program from June-August.

The Campaign

After establishing the basics of the campaign, we set out to find a local organization that we could partner with to help execute our plan. We landed on Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina: a major food bank in our area that has been working to eradicate hunger in northwest NC for almost 40 years. We were excited to learn about their Summer Feeding Program, a program designed specifically to help children who are most at risk of suffering from food insecurity during the summer — this would dovetail perfectly with our client’s goals.

With this partnership, we were able to establish the campaign guidelines: for every Happy Meal purchased on Mondays during the month of June, one would be donated to Second Harvest. Then, in conjunction with their partner agencies, the food bank would distribute these meals to children in their Summer Feeding Program.

The Execution

We knew the success of this campaign relied heavily on its execution — specifically, making sure local community members were aware of and participating in the initiative. While we did engage in some traditional forms of advertising like hanging window clings in each restaurant and working with a local company to negotiate the placement of eight pro-bono digital display billboards throughout the Triad, we relied primarily on traditional public relations tactics to raise awareness within our local community.

To do this, we leveraged existing relationships with local television, newspaper and radio stations to get the word out. Since it was a month-long initiative, we wanted to remain in the news cycle as much as possible. We knew that to achieve this, it would be crucial to come up with different tactics for engaging local media so that the information never seemed stale or repetitive.

We decided to engage the media at three different touchpoints throughout this initiative: Pre, During and Post Campaign. We also refined our approach so that we were actively spreading the larger message of “food insecurity within children” and then narrowing down the message by showing what McDonald’s is doing to make a difference locally.

During our “pre-campaign” stage, we arranged for a local restaurant owner interview on 98.7 Simon’s Sunday morning radio show the day before the campaign was set to begin. We used this time to discuss the program’s goals and announce all its important details. Then, on the first Monday morning of the campaign each year, we had another local owner appear on WFMY News 2’s Good Morning show to help announce its official start. To round out our pre-buzz efforts, we also submitted the campaign details to local event calendars for community members to see.

In addition to posting about B1S1 on Triad McDonald’s social media accounts, our team engaged media during the campaign by inviting them to semi-spontaneous food deliveries in July to children at specified summer camps. Over the course of the campaign, we coordinated more than 10 Happy Meal deliveries and received media coverage for almost all of them.

Lastly, we sought out post-media coverage by sharing the program’s outcome far and wide. In addition to the number of meals we delivered to children at summer camps, we would report on the total number of meals donated during each June as a result of local community participation.

The Results

The success of this campaign rested on our ability to effectively alert local community members throughout the execution of both traditional and non-traditional public relations tactics. From a media relations standpoint, we could not have asked for a better outcome. Each year, we were able to secure coverage in several of the major media outlets in the Triad including television interviews on all three primary TV stations (WFMY, WXII and Fox 8), print articles in key newspapers like The News & Record and High Point Enterprise and digital coverage on dozens of websites and social media accounts. Our efforts resulted in the generation of millions of potential media impressions, which can be seen by the increase in participants each year.

But the most important result we got from this campaign is the number of children we were able to provide with a balanced and nutritious meal when they needed it the most. For three years in a row (2015-2017), we significantly increased the number of Happy Meals donated to local children in need.

Happy Meals Donated in 2015

Happy Meals Donated in 2016

Happy Meals Donated in 2017

Brand Study: How Less is More at The Masters

Brand Study: How Less is More at The Masters

As marketers, we constantly hear about the importance of adaptation. How it’s “crucial to keep up with the times” or, “if your brand isn’t evolving to meet the needs of your consumer, they’ll find one that is.

With this constant focus on growth and enhancement, we have to ask: are the good old days of simply relying on brand recognition truly gone? Or is it still possible to achieve marketing success without conforming to the latest trends?

We didn’t have to look further than Augusta, GA, to find our answer.  

A self-proclaimed “tradition unlike any other,” The Masters is considered the best and most prestigious golf tournament in the world. For marketers, it is admired as one of the world’s greatest brands. Since 1934, this annual event has continued to gain popularity and prestige, all while changing very little about its marketing and branding strategies. Even amidst all these lessons on evolution, the brand has found marketing success in staying true to its roots and the idea that “less is more.”

The 2019 Masters had only six sponsors, many of which have been associated with the tournament for several years. Each pay an estimated $6 million annually for their title. But even then, sponsor brands have a very minimal presence: no signage on the course or in the concessions area, a shared four minutes of ads per broadcast hour and other strict rules about how their association with this tournament can be promoted.

It may not sound glamorous, but pure association and less competition can certainly pay off. In 2018, Nielsen estimated a total of $128 million in media value for tournament sponsors. Considering these brands don’t get so much as a logo on a caddie bib, their return is pretty impressive.

Several other original aspects of the tournament make sure this experience is not just one-of-a-kind, but also traditional — and yes, extremely exclusive. Official Masters gear can only be purchased at Augusta National’s gift shop. Tickets are either inherited from a family member or won via a lottery. Caddies wear the classic uniform of a white jumpsuit and a green hat.

These are some of the most recognizable elements of the tournament, and without these seemingly small details, the experience at the heart of the brand would be lost.

Unlike other popular sporting events, The Masters isn’t making millions of dollars in revenue through multiple sponsorships or by licensing merchandise outside of the club’s gift shop. It doesn’t sell TV rights to the highest bidder or price :30 commercial spots at upwards of $5 million. Heck, they don’t even charge more than a few dollars for a beer.

The purity of The Master’s identity is one of its most attractive features. It isn’t bogged down by “noise” surrounding the event; the focus is solely on the game, the players and the experience of Augusta National.

Marketing trends will come and go and there will always be a new method, measurement or message to test. But at the end of the day, our true priority as marketers should be staying true to our brand and our goals — even if that means less is more.

BKI Brand Study: A Tale of Two (Carhartt) Brands

BKI Brand Study: A Tale of Two (Carhartt) Brands

Founded in 1889, in Dearborn, MI, Carhartt occupies a place in American culture few brands can lay claim to. On the one hand, they are a ubiquitous symbol of the working class, the favorite garment of farmhands, laborers and outdoor lovers.

But they also play a major role in the history of communities like hip-hop, extreme sports and “streetwear.”

So how does one brand manage to appeal to two groups of consumers who likely don’t overlap anywhere else?

Our latest Brand Study explores this tale of two brands.

Rough & Rugged

Carhartt is best known for its no-nonsense approach to workwear. Its iconic duck canvas jacket has been worn for generations, largely in their signature “Carhartt Brown” color.

Whether it is lumberjacks felling trees in the pacific northwest or auto workers in the assembly lines of Detroit, Carhartt’s customers have remained fiercely loyal.

This despite the company’s refusal to ever sell their garments at a premium or in discount stores like Wal-Mart or Kmart.

Carhartt has been used as a political symbol, too. It’s been deployed by politicians across the spectrum to evoke a connection to the so-called “everyman.”

Barack Obama was photographed wearing it during a 2015 trip to Alaska, while the state’s most famous politician, Sarah Palin, has a well-documented love of the brand.

Much like what kind of beer a politician prefers (Domestic? Imported? Craft?) has become a talking point during each election cycle, so, too has wearing Carhartt been seen by some as an attempt to connect with blue-collar workers.

Urban Trendsetters

While Carhartt has spent the last 130 years in the company of the working class, it has also been the favorite of “streetwear” enthusiasts since the mid-1980s.

The brand’s superstar status in this community began somewhat nefariously, having been described by the New York Times in 1990 as the favorite choice of drug dealers who loved Carhartt’s deep pockets.

Fashionable youth took notice, and the famous chore coats soon began popping up in the burgeoning hip-hop communities of New York and Los Angeles.

Carhartt received another boost of street cred from the seminal hip-hop label, Tommy Boy, who gave away dozens of custom-made Carhartt jackets to tastemakers and industry influencers.

The New York Times’ 1990 feature on the Carhartt Chore Coat.

It was during this period that Carhartt caught the eye of two European denim designers, Edwin and Salomée Faeh.

While their original agreement was to import and sell original pieces across Europe, they soon gained enough trust from Carhartt’s founding family to branch out into designing their own fashion-forward interpretations of the brand.

This project, called Work In Progress (WIP), has evolved into what some have deemed “the most important brand in streetwear.”

While much of WIP’s reflects Carhartt’s no frills aesthetic, it also has the elasticity to veer off into much more experimental territory.

A typical WIP launch might include subtle updates to the famous blue Michigan Chore Coat alongside a varsity jacket in technicolor purple or highlighter green. The WIP lines are also typically geared towards a more tailored, skinny cut, whereas the original Carhartt line retains its “working man’s fit.”

Many will also note the significant increase in price across the two brands, but Carhartt and Work In Progress are not selling to the same audiences — they are two distinct yet intertwined brands.

A (Fashion) House Divided Can Stand

So how exactly did Carhartt manage to find itself in the enviable position of appealing to such a wide audience? According to Esquire magazine, “Carhartt couldn’t tell you how it’s marketed to such a diverse group because it hasn’t. The company has followed working class America for 128 years and this is just where it wound up.”

In fact, Carhartt has never employed an outside agency (sad face) for any of their marketing or advertising needs. This is a rarity for a brand of its size, especially considering their proximity to The Big 3 auto companies of Detroit, who for decades were the proverbial “white whale” of the advertising industry.

Work In Progress uses familiar tones in new applications.

It would appear that Carhartt largely cemented its place in the world by simply being themselves. It would’ve surely felt forced had the brand tried to create something like Work In Progress in order to proactively chase the urban youth demographic.

Instead, they recognized that they had been adopted by this group of trendsetting skateboarders, graffiti artists and rappers and allowed their brand to evolve to speak directly to that audience without sacrificing their integrity.

As WGSN’s Senior Menswear Trend Forecaster Brian Trunzo puts it, “Carhartt represents everybody. It represents the right and the left. It represents the fashion folks and the non-fashion folks. It’s a brand folks can rally around. Everything they do is real.”

The word “authenticity” gets thrown around a lot these days, but brands like Carhartt are a great example of what that actually looks like. They stay true to their core mission but allow themselves the flexibility to explore opportunities when they arise. So whether it’s on a ranch in Montana or a skatepark in Los Angeles, you know that gold “C” stands for quality, durability and dependability. And that is some seriously enviable brand equity.

BKI Brand Study: How Patagonia Builds Brand Loyalty

BKI Brand Study: How Patagonia Builds Brand Loyalty

In an era where positive news can seem hard to come by, and the smallest incident can severely harm a brand’s reputation, the importance of humble bragging is next-to-none. But how do you promote your company’s good deeds in a way that’s noticeable enough to build goodwill without looking egotistical?

Make it a part of your brand’s mission.

Patagonia, an American outdoor clothing company, has always been at the forefront of social activism. In fact, the company recently updated their mission to clearly define their intentions: “Patagonia is in business to save our home planet.”

Although the mission is quite lofty, Patagonia seems to be rising to meet the challenge. A few weeks ago, the company announced they were donating $10 million received through tax cuts in 2017 to support grassroots environmental organizations. “Instead of putting the money back into our business, we’re responding by putting $10 million back into the planet,” Rose Marcario, the company’s CEO, wrote in a statement published to LinkedIn .

And while this generous act is certainly a big win for the great outdoors, it’s also a big public relations win for Patagonia itself.

When done correctly, charitable initiatives such as this one can go a long way in helping brands build a positive public image (one of the main goals of PR) — especially with today’s consumers. According to a study conducted by Cone Communications/Ebiquity Global CSR, when deciding between two brands matched in quality and price, 90% of consumers supported the brand that was aligned with a charitable cause. Patagonia’s commitment to support those who support the environment is seen and appreciated by consumers and can make them more likely to choose this brand in the future.

Philanthropic efforts can also help humanize large, wealthy companies like Patagonia, especially when the cause they are supporting is relevant to the brand. Patagonia’s significant financial contribution comes at a time where there are rising concerns for the current and future health of our planet. As a company that promotes outdoor activities, worldly exploration and more, this issue directly affects their brand.

When deciding between two equally matched brands, 90% of consumers supported the brand that was aligned with a charitable cause.

Taking a stance on current issues that relate to their mission and using their platform to do good helps Patagonia position itself as a company that cares. And it also helps portray itself as having its finger on the pulse of current events and issues — another aspect often appreciated by consumers (and not to mention, something that makes organizations look good). Patagonia’s $10 million contribution was dispersed among several grassroots organizations that vary in size, scope and goals. Ultimately, this will create an impact on both a small and large scale.

Patagonia’s success can be attributed to remaining committed to their mission and being authentic in their approach to making a difference. Because the company specializes in outdoor apparel, their consumers will feel the direct impact of their contributions to creating a cleaner, healthier planet. Marcario closed her statement by writing, “In this season of giving, we are giving away this tax cut to the planet, our only home, which needs it now more than ever.”

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