Today, everywhere I look I see pink ribbons and red dresses - now don't get me wrong, Cancer and Heart Disease are very important causes, and ones which need corporate support, but finding a cause that truly aligns with your company's mission and vision and then integrating the cause into every aspect of your organization is a challenging task - unless you are Stonyfield. To say that Stonyfield is a mission driven organization would be an understatement. For Stonyfield's President/CEO, Gary Hirshberg, cause is more than just an afterthought. Cause drives every element of the organization - from its plant design, to its strong support for the organic farmers who supply their milk to their health education programs. Build on 5 core values, (which they print on each employee's business card) Stonyfield is committed to providing quality certified organic products, consumer health education, being a role model for good corporate stewardship, providing a healthful and productive place for their employees, and of course; delivering good returns to their investors. They do so many things to Attract-Her that its hard to single out one program to talk about.
During a recent interview with Cathleen Toomey, Stonyfield's VP of Communication, I learned about two programs that demonstrate how Cause Marketing can truly support an organization's product and mission. Menu for Change is an integrated set of programs targeting obesity and unhealthy eating habits in children. It combines parent, school and student education activities. One component, the Healthy Vending Machine program, offers schools a healthy vending machine option. If you think this program is self serving, think again. Only 5 of the 150 items offered are from Stonyfield, the rest of the products come from other vendors who produce all natural and organic items. Once a school agrees to place a healthy vending machine in it's location, a student "taste testing" team selects their favorite snack items to place in their machines. The result - a customized school snack program driven by their own internal student champions! The program meets California's SB-19 nutritional guidelines and any nutritional guideline that a participating school requires, and best of all - the machine is offered free-of-charge so profits go directly back to the school! The program has been rolled out in 6 states with 32 machines in place and has a list of 900+ schools waiting in line!
Another Menu for Change program is the Organic Lunch Box Challenge. This program targets parents who pack daily lunches for their kids, and together with a Parent Action Kit helps moms and dads learn how to work with their local governments to fight the childhood obesity epidemic. One of their newest efforts is Good2Go. This pilot program is working with schools to create an early morning exercise + healthy breakfast school program.
If this all sounds like hard work, it is, but hard work doesn't mean no fun. From sponsoring a dairy cow in their Have-a-Cow program, to learning about Stonyfield in their Moosletters and even winning in the kitchen, proves that having a heart and a sense of humor pays off. (my personal favorite is their home page animations ...having grown up in Ohio farmland, wagging cow tails remind me of some very funny cow tipping trips - but that's another story...)
Yes, Stonyfield defines Cause Marketing and their success shows that identifying and focusing on your unique Cause can equal strong bottom line results - all without the help of any advertising (yes, this is no typo - no advertising). So does word-of-mouth marketing work? It definitely has mooved Stonyfield's sales numbers - and that's a bottom line that women and men can live with!
Terri Whitesel, President/Founder, Interpret-Her
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