| CHAPTER 9 |

GIVE MORE TO GET MORE

Charity Is Good PR Work

“You think I’m not aware that I’m living the first line of my obituary right now?”

—C. J. Cregg, White House press secretary on The West Wing

I was raised in a home where giving wasn’t an option; it was a requirement, even though my family didn’t have much. Whether it was money, time, attention, or thoughts, my mother expected us to be givers. For me, those acts are a part of a holy, higher value that says all people should give, regardless of how much or how little they have. Personally, I donate 10 percent of my income annually to charity, and my firm matches employees’ charitable contributions dollar for dollar. The same spirit should be at the forefront of all brands and businesses, not only from a practical and PR perspective but also a spiritual perspective.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can sometimes be seen as disingenuous window dressing for a company or a brand. There are reasons why this happens, and ways you can avoid it. Seeing the ubiquitous “Social Responsibility,” “Green,” or “Community Outreach” tabs on company websites can go over the heads of jaded consumers. We have worked with brands that look at donations as a way to soften up consumers, but CSR doesn’t work if it’s not authentic. That said, there are many individuals, businesses, and corporations that are devoted to a goal larger than their own sales and profits. Corporations sometimes donate to charities simply as a way to attach themselves to the inevitable media involved with charity. But those efforts can rightfully be seen as inauthentic. And then there are those who do the right thing and should be celebrated for their authenticity (like Patagonia, which we discussed in Chapter 5).

Celebrities who walk around hospitals, attend fund-raising events, or announce monetary donations can sometimes be seen as less than completely genuine. It only works with dedication and belief in the cause. If not, your insincerity shows like a cheap suit. As Roger Stone, a Republican strategist says, “You can’t just write large checks and think you’re doing good work. You have to take on specific problems that interest you, and spend your money, time, and business capabilities on them,” in order to make charity work appear genuine. “You have to communicate often and well,” says Stone.

When done right, with sincerity and full commitment, corporate responsibility can bring personal and professional fulfillment, as well as positive PR. Helping and giving makes you feel good. I love helping brands successfully build market share through good deeds. Helping organizations that I believe in is a lot of fun; I never underestimate the pleasure of giving. What a high it is to see a nonprofit create a much-needed community program, bring arts to a community, or help those in need. That kind of thing never gets old. Ultimately, when you feel good, you can do more and do better in your own business.

Another business benefit that comes from giving is the amazing people you meet working with nonprofit organizations you care about—people who care about the same issues you do and who could become lifelong friends and beneficial business relationships. Often these are people who would hardly be accessible in the “real world,” but become available when reached through a good cause. They can even become your biggest clients, champions, and helpers. I received a call out of the blue from a very wealthy person, someone I had met casually at a fund-raiser for a community program with which I am involved. “I’m looking for a PR firm and, all things being equal, I want to give you the business,” he told me. I did indeed get the business from him, along with more business leads and potential clients. Your efforts to help a charity reverberate can have an impact on customer behavior. By doing good, you’re creating good feelings about your company and doing more for the charity you support—that’s a major win by anyone’s standards. That’s what I call on-the-ground PR.

Whether they’re big or small, companies see the cost-effectiveness of PR through charity. Pepsi’s Pepsi Refresh Project, for example, awards grants to people, businesses, and nonprofits with ideas that will have a positive social or community impact. American Express has a similar program, called Members Project, which lets people vote for innovative projects or businesses that will have a positive impact on a community. Amex then funds the winners.

The goal of Disney’s “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” is to inspire people to volunteer a day of service in their communities in exchange for a voucher redeemable for a one-day, one-theme-park ticket. In the hopes of encouraging a spirit of volunteerism, Disney asked guests to pick a charitable organization from a list it compiled. After a family or individual completed the volunteer day, Disney rewarded them with a certificate to redeem for a Disney theme-park ticket. If a participating guest already had an admission ticket, no problem, they could choose a special Fastpass, an Ear Hat figurine with exclusive trading pins, or the option to donate the park ticket to a participating charity.

Disney was pleased with the outcome of the volunteer program; its popularity was greater than it had anticipated. According to Disney’s plan, the program would end once 1 million tickets had been given out. In a matter of weeks after announcing the project, 600,000 people had already volunteered; two weeks after that, Disney had nearly reached 1 million volunteers. Disney guests who signed up for future volunteer opportunities received a letter from their chosen charity organization saying that the program had nearly reached the 1 million limit.

These large-scale corporate efforts are authentic, have a positive impact on communities, and improve customers’ view of the companies—all at a fraction of the cost of a Super Bowl ad or another big national campaign. Small companies can do the same thing by creating scholarship programs, giveaways of goods and services in exchange for customer fund-raising efforts for local causes, and so on. Local newspaper and magazine reporters, radio station and TV news programs will all cover your efforts. Reporters love these stories not only because of their feel-good nature but also because they represent real local news, especially if you’re involved in a cause that helps solve a problem in your community. And again, you aren’t doing it for these reasons; you’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do.

  When done right, with sincerity and full commitment, corporate responsibility can bring personal and professional fulfillment along with positive PR.

THE TRANSFORMATIONAL POWER OF GIVING BACK

The right kind of charity work, timed well, can help restore a tarnished image. Angelina Jolie is a great example. For a while, Jolie seemed not on the edge but all the way over the precipice, what with making out with her brother, breaking up Laura Dern’s marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, and wearing Thornton’s blood in a charm around her neck. She was a wild child; over the last few years however, she’s done a great job turning her image around (even while stealing Jennifer Aniston’s husband). Now she not only speaks out against global poverty when most actresses pontificate about metallic flats versus leather stilettos (or comment on political issues they know little about), but she also puts her money, time, and resources where her mouth is. Her brand today is not only about being a gorgeous woman and a talented actress but also an effective activist and fund-raiser for causes having to do with children around the world. This is an aspect of the actress’s brand that has been built over many years of hard work, and it’s clearly authentic. It has worked very well.

The actress also cleverly revealed that she was expecting a baby with Brad Pitt during a charitable mission. In 2006, Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by a charity. The first pictures of a pregnant Jolie were sold to People magazine for a reported $500,000 donation to the charity. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $2 million to buy and distribute medications to treat diseases that are ravaging Ethiopia, the country from which her daughter Zahara Marley was adopted. Before that, Jolie became a goodwill ambassador for the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees. In that role, she visited displaced people in more than 20 countries, including Sierra Leone, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Jolie has also returned to Haiti many times, most recently in 2010 to distribute aid after an earthquake devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince. This just scratches the surface of the charitable work Jolie has done. In 2007, Jolie visited a refugee camp in Chad for a second time in order to raise awareness of the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the killing in Darfur. In 2008, Jolie made a trip to Afghanistan to plea for international assistance for refugees.

Jolie is clearly authentic in her passion for these causes and it has worked for her, but can anyone doubt that for however much time and money she’s donated, she’s gotten it back many times over in salary and reputational reward? She took flak in the media for selling her pregnant photos to People for a charity donation, but she shouldn’t have. Why would she give photos away for nothing and give them to tabloids who seem more obsessed with her tattoos and personal life than what she does as an actress and activist? I respect people who want to control their own content and pursue their positions of power or notoriety to do good in the world. The charity initiatives have worked to burnish her reputation and public standing because her work is very real. The brand you see of Angelina Jolie at the UN or as a mother is real.

A Rose by Any Other Name Smells as Sweet

Jalen Rose hired us in 2004. Rose was a good basketball player, famous for his role in Michigan’s Fab Five and a former NBA all-star. He knew he had a few years left in his professional basketball career and wanted to build a stronger brand to accomplish his post-career goals of being a broadcaster and eventually a general manager or team owner. He is a soft-spoken, decent man and is smart with his money (in contrast to many of his peers who made and lost tens of millions of dollars).

We’re the same age and quickly became friends. Our PR efforts weren’t about getting any media for Rose—this was a guy who’s been interviewed daily for the past 20 years. Our strategy was making sure he appeared in media that people wouldn’t expect to see him in, and that the media saw him in the right light.

He differentiated himself with his sense of fashion; he was very proud of his clothes, which allowed him to get media in fashion magazines, outlets where he wouldn’t usually be featured. This despite the fact that when he first hired us, he was playing outside the United States for the Toronto Raptors, regarded at the time as the worst team in the NBA. We maximized his charitable giving via his foundation, the Jalen Rose Foundation, and promoted and hyped his social media activities, all things that allowed him to be seen not only as a basketball player but as someone who takes responsibility and cares about his community. This effort appealed to many. We highlighted his many donations, like his scholarship fund and his donation of $100,000 toward a hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

His charity work helped position him for the next phase of his career, namely to make him a marketable broadcaster and off-the-court personality. We were able to secure interviews and features with Rose in major print and broadcast outlets across the country. We worked around his NBA schedule, generating feature stories and one-on-one interviews with Fox News, BET, and The Source magazine, Vibe, Penthouse, Hemispheres, Complex, Black Men, Dime, and a slew of others.

As of this writing, Rose is one of ESPN’s lead NBA commentators and is a fixture on the network’s programming. While many athletes speculate about what they will do when their careers are complete, Rose’s ability to successfully make the transition during his career through strategic public relations has served him well. And I really do think a lot of it had to do with positioning Rose as a person who was deeply committed to charity, doing the right thing, and helping others. We created the persona of a smart, well-rounded man, not just on the court but off it as well, and he fulfills it every day.

Champagne PR on a Beer Budget

On the heels of summer, traditionally the highest sales period of the beer industry, 5WPR was challenged with the task of maintaining a personal connection between Grolsch and its consumers while on a limited budget. Although Grolsch is a major beer brand in Europe, it was considered a high-end specialty beer in the United States; a tiny brand when we worked with them. One of the challenges of working with Grolsch Premium Lager was competing with the budgets of the Heinekens of the world. To increase brand recognition, our goal was to secure celebrity affiliation and association with Grolsch as a man’s drink—the hardest part was spending no more than five figures while at it.

Men’s charity causes are tough. For women, there’s breast cancer and other recognizable and talked-about causes. How many men really want to talk about subjects like illness, death, and disease—things that make them feel very vulnerable? Still, we needed a cause that was relevant to Grolsch’s demographic, which skewed more adult male than college frat boy. Our team identified prostate cancer as the cause for our campaign—one in six men will get prostate cancer. We then researched legitimate 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations in the field of prostate cancer. Our choice was the National Prostate Cancer Coalition (NPCC), which is a leader in raising awareness and funding for prostate cancer research and treatment. We approached the NPCC, which was pleased to partner with Grolsch and allow its name to be used (in exchange for the proceeds from the auction as a donation).

Finding an organic way to involve celebrities and harness their power to attract great media was the next challenge. Prostate cancer is a serious issue and not easy to talk about. The creative concept we arrived at was Grolsch Pop Art: having celebrities hand-paint and autograph Grolsch Swingtop bottles, which would then be auctioned off on eBay, with proceeds going to the NPCC. The Grolsch Swingtop was something beer drinkers knew about and saw as a distinctive, likeable attribute of the brand. This campaign provided a unique opportunity to have celebrities brand Grolsch Swingtop bottles and raise awareness for a major issue in men’s health.

The campaign positioned Grolsch as both socially responsible and as an elite beverage that could be enjoyed by the American male.

We reached out to celebrities’ publicists, agents, and managers via personal relationships with “care packages” that included a Grolsch Swingtop bottle, paints, paintbrushes, a release form, and a disposable camera for the celebs to take pictures of themselves. Bingo! Donald Trump, Woody Allen, Lil’ Kim, Charlie Rose, and a host of other big names were willing to help out our charity by painting and autographing the bottles. We launched on eBay, and the “Pop Art” went for hundreds of dollars a piece during the two-week auction. “The Donald” naturally created a frenzied bidding war with his artwork—he painted a unique “You’re Fired” bottle himself. Jason Lee, star of the TV show My Name Is Earl, sent us a bottle with a shot of himself on the set. Many of the celebrities were happy to “talk up” the auction and their participation in it, in large part because they were doing it for charity. Woody Allen even granted a rare interview to discuss Grolsch Pop Art and educate men on the importance of having their prostates checked.

In the end, the campaign was good fun and garnered extensive media coverage from a variety of entertainment, trade, and online publications. We were able to drive high traffic to eBay, which increased bidding on the bottles and further linked people to Grolsch, and created positive celebrity association with the Grolsch brand. And consumers felt good about Grolsch helping charity—all at a super-low cost to the brand. It was amazing PR for the Grolsch brand, and what happened after?

1. The NPCC hired us for a project immediately after the Grolsch campaign ended to help them promote its own charitable and educational initiatives.
2. Grolsch ended its five-year relationship with their importer and signed a distribution agreement with Anheuser-Busch, a much larger company.
3. Anheuser-Busch hired us for entertainment PR work following the campaign.

Bow Wow!

Camp Bow Wow, the doggie day care and boarding franchise, has been involved in a host of charitable causes and community outreach since it was founded. It’s a natural extension of the brand for CEO and Top Dog Heidi Ganahl to be involved in helping humane causes. “We run events for local pet charities constantly at our Camps and everyone from staff to our clients is super-involved,” she says. Among other programs, The Bow Wow Buddies Foundation provides social interaction and exercise programs for shelter animals, raises money for rescue efforts, and facilitates adoption of abandoned pets. Animal cause work is integrated into Camp Bow Wow’s corporate mission, which makes sense. Customers would expect nothing less because commitment to animal welfare is in the DNA of pet lovers. As a result, the company has great customer loyalty and ongoing local media coverage.

We helped Camp Bow Wow in a program to assist in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup efforts, tagging the company as a nationally recognizable brand that helped to alleviate the damage. Camp Bow Wow urged its franchises across the country to collect pet fur to create oil booms to send to the Gulf. Shortly after announcing this partnership, 5WPR secured placements in MSNBC.com, Fox New York, Fox Los Angeles, ABC Denver, New York Daily News, New York Post, Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, and many other outlets. More than 50 top-tier media placements were garnered surrounding this initiative, and a lot of pet hair was collected. It was short-term, helpful, and strategic. It was good for the cause and good for the brand. The timing worked and the cause and the brand both won.

Winning at corporate responsibility requires tremendous dedication. Charity works only if it:

1. Is consistent and authentic with your brand. Too often, companies do charity only because they want press. However, these efforts rarely come off as authentic and end up backfiring. When charity fits with a brand and comes from the heart of a company, it works.
2. Combines a strong emotional appeal with fact-based reasoning. For instance, businesses that set up successful aid programs after the Haiti earthquake or the devastating hurricanes on the Gulf Coast both touched donors’ hearts with stories and images of affected people and connected with them by telling them that the money would be used for specific purposes: rebuilding infrastructure, providing housing, food and clothing, and so on.
3. Makes a specific “ask” and promises quantifiable results. This is so important—people want to know that the money they are donating or the company and charity they’re supporting are using donations and other resources to fill real, identifiable needs. And they want follow-up. If your charity work involves getting customers to donate, then tell them what happened to the money, what good it did, who it helped, and how.

PR is a constant battlefield, and you have to be at your best and fittest to fight right. While workouts, running, and basketball are, for me, great mental, emotional, and physical releases, I also spend time each week praying and learning—it’s good for my mental health. Optimism breeds optimism and that in turn breeds success and happiness. Giving back is one of the greatest expressions of optimism there is. At the end of the day you’re lucky to find ways to make a difference and improve the quality of people’s lives. If you’ve got that going on you’ll win every time.