Hunger impacts 1 in 6 Americans, including 16 million children, who do not have access to adequate nourishment to help them reach their full potential. And milk, while one of the most requested nutrition staples, is rarely donated. In fact, the 46 million Americans served annually in the Feeding America network receive the equivalent of less than one gallon of milk per person per year.
Based on a new insight that people wanted to donate fresh foods like milk but they didn't know how, America's milk companies teamed up with dairy farmers across the country to create The Great American Milk Drive, a first-of-its kind program designed to get fresh, nutritious milk in the hands of those who need it most. It's easy to buy extra cans of food at the store or clean out your cabinet at the end of the year and give when it's convenient, but while milk provides key nutrients essential for food insecure Americans, especially kids, donating a fresh item like milk presents a new set of problems: keeping it fresh, getting it to the food bank before it expires and ensuring the food bank has the refrigeration capabilities to store it.
To help solve these issues, the program launched in partnership with Feeding America, the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization, with a focus on giving back to local communities and shining a spotlight on the vital role milk plays in all diets.
To better understand the role milk plays in America's food banks, the team behind The Great American Milk drive worked with Feeding America to survey its network of more than 200 food banks. The results were staggering:
- Milk is the top nutritious food item requested by food banks
- Ninety-five percent of food banks say they don't get enough milk to meet client demand (in fact, they get about one gallon, per person, per year)
- A lack of donations is the top barrier food banks face when delivering milk to clients
Our strategy consists of:
- Building Awareness: Educating America about the need for milk in food banks through media relations throughout 25 key markets, strategically selected based on local hunger rates, market size and other key factors while also reinforcing our nutritional and protein messaging to keep the campaign top-of-mind.
- Creating Engagement: Engaging consumers via social media to share program messaging around organic conversations. Highlighting that the program emphasizes the local impact on each community – all donations are delivered to food banks in consumers' local communities.
- Inspire Urgency: Encourage milk donations on an ongoing basis throughout the year. The long-term, multi-year program donation goal is up to 2 million gallons of milk.
To bring the Great American Milk Drive program to life, we:
- Reached a Broad Audience via Key Influencers: Jesse Tyler Ferguson, a Feeding America advocate, announced the program alongside registered dietitian Ellie Krieger and Feeding America Chief Communications Officer Maura Daly at one of the busiest food banks in the country and live via broadcast across social channels and to food banks, media and industry across the country.
- Strategically Selected Markets Where Our Story Would Have the Greatest Impact: The national kickoff was one of 10 that took place at food banks across the country designed to localize the need – and impact – of the program. Another wave of media outreach and local events took place in September – Feeding America's Hunger Action Month.
- Produced Compelling Content To Drive Donations and Tell Our Nutrition Story: Established a dedicated content pillar on existing Milk Life website and social media properties that delivers new and compelling content.
- Generated Organic Conversations via Key Partnerships: Established a partnership with Mom It Forward, a national mom blogger community, to help seed our nutritional messaging by posting on its network of blogs and social channels, sending influencers to events and hosting a Google Hangout.
- Conducted Ongoing Media Outreach to Keep the Story Relevant: Kept our story fresh by updating it with new statistics, timely angles and – most importantly – our nutritional and protein messaging.
EFFECTIVENESS AND RESULTS
Awareness
Of the more than 317 million branded impressions generated since April:
- Coverage has appeared in all of the 25 targeted markets.
- With 81% of placements mentioning protein, campaign analysis has revealed that campaign promotion also spurs consumption/serving among those aware. (Making a donation is a true act of support for the "need" for milk – for families in need AND for your own family.)
- In just 3 months, more than 15 percent of people were aware of the cause – starting from a baseline of 0%.
Relevance and Engagement
Generated more than 118 million social impressions, with owned content topping 20 million (over 20 times our engagement benchmark).
- Engagement by channel:
- oFacebook
- §Posts: 21,512
- §Impressions: 28,160,133
- oTwitter:
- §Tweets: 11,790
- §Impressions: 76,127,087
- oInstagram:
- §Posts: 3,897
- §Impressions: 4,304,950
- oBlogger Partnership with Mom It Forward:
- §The bloggers generated nearly 1,200 engagements on their social posts alone
§The Twitter Party resulted in nearly 2,500 tweets using the #MilkDrive hashtag, for a total of 24MM impressions.
Generate Donations
More than 115,000 gallons have been delivered to families across the country, driven by donations online, via text, at events or at retail checkout counters. Many of these donations were driven by key media placements, including a segment with Jesse Tyler Ferguson discussing the program on Rachael Ray, which generated spikes in online donations each time it aired.
And, in states with specific local activations, donations were significantly higher than those not targeted – reinforcing the success of awareness focused efforts. For example, while small state Iowa has more than 4,000 donations, we've conducted focused efforts there, compared to larger state, New Jersey, with limited activations and limited donations (just over 1,000 gallons).
*The Great American Milk Drive program is an ongoing program that will also activate around the holidays (a key charitable giving season) and into 2015. Results are expected to increase with ongoing efforts.
