Silk Soymilk and The Bonneville Environmental Foundation

Wind-Powered Cause Marketing

As I write this, I don’t know exactly where the electricity that powers my computer comes from. I live in Utah and a good deal of electrical power is generated from locally-mined coal. So it could have come from a relatively dirty source like that.

I’m about five miles away from a canyon stream where there’s been a small hydroelectric plant for more than 80 years. Environmentally-speaking, that’s quite clean. Moreover, this part of the American West is dotted with super-sized hydroelectric plants. So it could have come from one of those sources, too. Or maybe a nuclear or solar power plant.

Illustrated above is an interesting cause-related marketing and sweepstakes campaign from Silk, the soymilk which is positioned against its competition in two main ways.

The first is that it’s kept in the refrigerator case near the dairy milk and thereby tastes more like cow’s milk. Soymilk doesn't have to be refrigerated. Silk, in fact has a line of soymilk that is "shelf stable" and requires no refrigeration until it's opened. But most Americans find cold milk the most palatable. That positioning remains Silk's principal selling point.

But increasing Silk is also positioning itself as a ‘green’ product. Which appears to be a savvy move in the States. Soymilk can be thought of as greener than cow’s milk and as Thomas Friedman pointed out in a long piece in the New York Times (registration required) on Sunday, “Green has hit Main Street.”

How green is Silk’s manufacturer, WhiteWave Foods? Those kinds of questions depend on how dogmatic you are about "green-ness." But while their electrical power comes from the grid just like mine, they pay for wind power ‘offsets.’ And they’re intellectually honest about what that does and does not mean.

“The energy that runs our homes and businesses comes from a variety of
sources….We don't have a choice of what kind of power we drain out of the
pool... But we do have a way to choose how the energy we use gets put back into
the pool. Silk Soymilk is making sure that only 100 percent clean, pure wind
energy goes back into the power pool to replace what we take from it.”

Here’s how this campaign works. You buy Silk and bring it home. Then you register online and enter the UPC code from the Silk carton. When you do you’re entered into a contest to win the grand prize which includes a suite of Energy Star products… for instance, a refrigerator, washer and dryer, air conditioner, etc… plus a $5,000 gift certificate from Gaiam Lifestyle Products and enough Green Tag offsets to power the new appliances for 3 years. The total package is worth $22,000.

Also, when you enter, WhiteWave puts a couple of nickels (the exact amount is unstated) into wind power. Instead of identifying a donation amount, they say this:

"By entering the Silk Green Caps for Green Energy Sweepstakes, you have helped us offset another 30 kilowatt hours of energy! Your contribution has prevented the
release of these pollutants by fossil fuel energy sources:
· 51.75 lbs. of carbon dioxide, the main gas responsible for climate change.
· 0.12 lbs. of sulphur dioxide, the main cause of acid rain.
· 12.66 gal. of waste water, used to cool power plants."

Of course one of the challenges of these kinds of efforts is how far to take it. Silk sits in the refrigerator case of my local grocer. And I’d be surprised if WhiteWave Foods is buying enough wind power offsets to offset the refrigeration of all the cartons of Silk in stores. Likewise they probably don’t offset the power required to produce the carton Silk comes in, or for that matter the power it takes to dispose of it or recycle it. Then there’s the power required to grow the soybeans or truck them to WhiteWave’s plants or out to the stores. You get the picture.

There’s a lot to like about this campaign. They are transparent about the amount of the campaign’s donation cap; $200,000. They have a cool animation that runs down a few simple things households could do to be greener. They have a carbon calculator to estimate your lifestyles carbon footprint. Plus, I like how the informational stuff, which I think strikes the right tone; helpful without being guilt-inducing.

The campaign’s only failing is that you really have to drill down into the sweepstakes’ official rules to find that it is The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (the provider of Green Tag offsets above) which gets the donation generated when you enter the UPC code. Likewise, the process whereby the Foundation offsets dirty energy is a little murky.

The Sweepstakes ends on August 1, but if I were advising WhiteWave I'd tell them to make permanent the green cap portion of the promotion, just as Campbell's Labels for Education and General Mills' Boxtops for Education are permanent fixtures. Green is as green does, after all.

To my European readers these kind of campaigns are old hat by now. But to my American readers you can expect to see more cause marketing campaigns like this one.

Cause Marketing and Galvanic Corrosion

Are there some cause marketing elements that should not be placed together in the same campaign? Or, if your company has a cause campaign with one charity are there other charities you should not support with a cause campaign?

These and other questions came to me recently while watching roofers replace the roof on a neighbor's house. They put copper flashing around the chimney and then very carefully nailed it down with expensive copper nails.

Anyone who has every roofed a house knows why. If you used the same galvanized nails that you use to nail down shingles they would react with the copper. First the nails would corrode and then the copper flashing in the area where the nail had been would corrode. It’s the result of an electrochemical reaction called galvanic corrosion.

You see the same effect in the kitchen when you bake salty foods like lasagna in a steel pan and cover it with aluminum foil. Leave it on too long and the foil will get pitted where it touches the lasagna. That’s galvanic corrosion, too.

You don’t have to know your anodes from cathodes to realize that galvanic corrosion is not far removed from the process whereby batteries create electricity.

But back to the question.

If you’re a company and your cause-related marketing mix included promotions for two different charities, would it create energy or corrosion?

For instance, right now Rite Aid, the large drug chain, is doing a paper icon campaign for Children’s Miracle Network (CMN). [CMN’s coupon icon is above along with CMN’s generic table tent on display on Rite Aid’s counter.] Barely two months ago Rite Aid did a similar campaign for the American Heart Association. Do they risk “icon campaign fatigue” or does the familiarity with the campaign improve results for everyone?

If you’re a charity is it prudent or boneheaded to try to sell cause marketing sponsorships to companies that compete with your current sponsors?

If you’re an agency doing cause-related marketing promotions would you turn down any business from a client’s competitor? OK, dumb question.

My answer is that it certainly could be corrosive for firms to do too many of the same kinds of campaigns in quick succession. Likewise, I would be very cautious about taking cause sponsorships to competitors of my existing sponsors. Certainly I would make sure I got a buy-off from existing sponsors before talking to their competitors.

But I remember Tom Smith... who was a long-time CEO at Food Lion... would call his competitors on behalf of Children’s Miracle Network because supporting CMN “was the right thing for the grocery business to do.”

The result of that kind of generosity of spirit is that CMN has long had a grocer campaign that crossed many boundaries and includes many competitors, even though CMN’s biggest sponsor has long been Wal-Mart, which competes with every retailer in America.

Whaddya think?

Feel free to comment.

Starfish Televison Network Goes Live

Watch it on Dish 1000 or on VDC.com

The Starfish Television Network profiled several times in this blog space, began broadcasting on Dish 1000 on Wednesday, April 18. Not long thereafter it began streaming live on Virtual Digital Cable, vdc.com.

Starfish [itself a 501(c)(3) public charity] airs 24-7, so it still very much needs your nonprofit programming.

Almost all types are welcome, including long-form programs, PSAs, documentaries, televised galas and award programs, sports events with a charitable angle, you name it.

But Starfish isn't indiscriminate. As per its nonprofit status, the programming must be must informational and educational in nature.

Oh, and airing programming on Starfish is free to nonprofits!

Starfish has a second need and that's for money to keep the channel on the air. As a public broadcaster Starfish is subject to FCC rules and regulations, much like PBS. So the staff and board of Starfish is actively seeking grants and sponsorship from corporations, foundations, and individuals.

To learn more about those opportunities, contact Starfish at 800-624-1844 or info@starfishtv.org.

In the interest of full disclosure, Starfish TV is a client.

An Interview with a Student Journalist II

This is the second half of an interview with University of Georgia Journalism Student Cathryn McIntosh on the subject of cause-related marketing. Read the first half here.

As before, I've edited this a little bit; this time because of some typos and to clarify some answers. Yikes! Needless to say as a former journalism student myself, I haven't been a good mentor when it comes to providing clean copy. So do what I say Cathryn, not what I do.

Ms. McIntosh's questions are in italics and my answers follow.

Do you think people take time to investigate the causes tied to the items they purchase? (i.e. A leopard printed bracelet “to save the leopards in Timbuktu?”)

That depends. By now I think we all know what the American Cancer Society is about or the Heart Association. Those causes either move you or they don’t. Newer entities like Susan G. Komen and Make-A-Wish probably have pretty good top of mind awareness, too. For the majority of us, those charities don’t require a lot of due diligence.

Likewise, if the price of the item in question is small, it’s not terribly rational to conduct lengthy research on whether or not the cause meets your definition of being truly worthy. If the waiter says, “When you buy our creme brulee, $0.50 goes to famine relief,” you don’t really need to first look at the charity’s 990 (tax return).

Oreck made a larger donation to hurricane relief when you bought one of their vacuums. I might look into an organization’s background if the donation were north of $25.

But maybe your question is, ‘can a cause marketing campaign help me to look at organization I’m unfamiliar with even though the donation in question is small?’ In that case, the answer is yes, if the campaign is designed with that intent and well-executed it can do just that.

What do you think is the most successful campaign right now? Why?

Before the news broke about RED I would have pointed the finger at them. There’s really two kinds of campaigns that I have a lot of praise for. First of all, the long-standing single-element campaigns: General Mills runs a good one for schools. Yoplait’s campaign for Susan G. Komen is pretty good, too. Then there’s the big omnibus campaigns with lots of moving parts. The Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign is admirable. Likewise Susan G. Komen’s efforts during breast cancer month (October) are admirable. There’s a lot to like about St. Jude’s Thanks & Giving effort, too. I live in Salt Lake City and I’ve always thought highly of the Utah Food Bank’s cause marketing campaign in advance of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

How do businesses decide which causes to support?

There’s a couple of approaches, at least.

1. One is to take a strategic approach. Say you’re a food manufacturer, then a strong strategic approach is to support a hunger cause. For instance, Campbells does its Stamp Out Hunger campaign with the US Postal Service that benefits food banks nationwide.
   
2. Another approach is to support the cause that generates the most passion among your ownership or employees. Munchkin Inc., which makes handy stuff for kids and parents, supports Susan G. Komen because the young wife of the VP of marketing contracted breast cancer.
   
3. You could just be true to your brand. Ben & Jerry’s darn near has to support causes like the Waterwheel Foundation to be true to itself and to meet the expectations of its customers.
   
4. They’re not as common, but there are instances of what I call ‘Business to Business Cause-Related Marketing.’ McLane, a distributor to the convenience store industry, supports CMN and has brought along a large handful of C-store chains to CMN. While I know for a fact that the people at McLane really have their hearts in this effort, they started doing B2B cause marketing because their customers... the c-stores... benefit from it.
   
5. Find out what your audience is interested in or what issues they respond to and then find a corresponding charity.

Join Cause-Related Marketing, Get a Choice of Two Cool Tools You Can Use Today

Kind Readers:

Kenta H. from Seattle is the latest person to join the Cause-Related Marketing Googlegroup.

You can join, too.

When you do, each new posting will come directly to your email box. No more typing in the unwieldy causerelatedmarketing.blogspot URL! Or finding the URL link through another site.

As an inducement, everyone that joins receives a copy of the “Five Flavors of Cause-Related Marketing, or the five-page “Corporate Benefits of Cause-Related Marketing” memo, which include footnotes. The choice is yours.

Use them to brainstorm new cause marketing ideas or bring a little gravitas to your proposals.

To join, simply send your name, your email address, city and country to aldenkeeneatgmaildotcom.

The city and country thing helps me know for whom I’m writing.

Your privacy is important to me, so be assured that I will never sell your name and contact information to any third party.

Warm regards,

Paul Jones
Alden Keene & Associates, Inc.

An Interview with a Student Journalist Part I

Go Bulldogs!

After my interview with Jessica Bennett of Newsweek several weeks back, I was astonished when another journalist approached me for an interview, this time a student from the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia in lovely Athens.

Having trained as a journalist myself, I could hardly turn down the request from Cathryn McIntosh.

This time I've redacted the interview a little. Ms. McIntosh asked several personal questions which I can't believe too many of my readers are interested in.

What follows are the first half of Ms. McIntosh's questions in italics and my answers. I'll post the remaining half on Thursday.

How do you think cause marketing is affecting social/political activism in America today?

I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer this question. There are certainly people who think of cause marketing as shilling for immoral and faceless corporations. Others see cause marketing as a bald attempt to increase consumerism and thereby waste the planet and its resources. A Newsweek reporter asked me three questions along this vein: “Are we buying merely to clear our consciences?” “Is it still charity when one gives only to get?” “Is putting money toward a status symbol really socially responsible?” Read my responses here.

Do you think its impact is positive? Why?

This is sorta like asking if college is a positive thing. It’s education sure and that’s generally positive. But what about the epidemic of binge drinking on campuses? Or vivisection going on in the labs? Or high crime rates among scholarship athletes? Etc. You would probably say that even in light of all the negatives... real and perceived... that college is a good thing. I would say much the same about cause marketing. On the balance, it’s a good thing. A lot of negatives... real and perceived... have been recently raised about cause marketing. From my perspectives, here are the positives:

1. It’s largely money raised from the “bottom of the pyramid,” to borrow from C.K. Prahalad’s book of the same name. Because it comes from the people the money is more democratic. People ‘vote’ with their purchases for the causes they care about. If they don’t vote for your cause in a cause marketing campaign, well then it’s [probably] time to take a hard look in the mirror.
   
2. Because the money comes from the collective, nonprofits can use it the way the makes the most sense to them. I can explain this more if you like, but believe me when I say that nonprofits go in a lot of directions that they might not otherwise go except for the fact that they found a donor with a hot button.
   
3. Others disagree, but I believe that cause marketing is one way that the people who work for sponsors to find meaning in their life. Viktor Frankl wrote that that’s what people are really looking for in life: not money or power or sex, but meaning.
   
4. Correspondingly, the interaction with for-profits necessitated by cause marketing can help make nonprofits more sophisticated in their programs, management and fundraising.
   
5. Cause marketing brings [a kind of] publicity to a cause that’s really not available any other way.

What group is the target market for cause marketing? Is there a type of person more likely to (literally) buy into cause branded products?

Surveys suggest that women are more responsive to cause marketing appeals than men and that young people more so than older ones. But I expect a well-crafted campaign with the appropriate cause could do well with almost any audience.

Hooah Energy Bars and the Troops

A ‘Marketing Conceit’

Regular readers know that transparency is my bête noire. Directly or indirectly, I must have 10 posts that address the issue. But it bears repeating; when it comes to cause-related marketing, don’t try to snooker the customer.

I saw this ad for Hooah Energy Bars in All You magazine, a women’s magazine published for Wal-Mart by Time Inc., and it has some transparency problems.

The ad and the website say, “Every HOOAH bar helps fund research that improves soldier safety, diet, and quality of life.” Promotional material for its liquid companion, HOOAH Soldier Fuel energy drink use similar language.

Supporting the troops sounds great doesn’t it? Especially to people like me with a military background (I was in the Army National Guard).

But that’s not exactly what’s happening here. The formulas for the bar and the drink were licensed by the US Department of Defense to D’Andrea Brothers, LLC, which produces and markets them under the HOOAH name.

In other words, the licensing fees paid by D’Andrea Brothers, LLC apparently go to the Department of Defense labs that originally developed the HOOAH bar and drink and thereby [somehow] benefits soldiers, sailors and Marines.

Let me hasten to add that D’Andrea Brothers, LLC is treading old and familiar ground here.

Every Canadian probably grows up hearing this story but not many others know it. In 1930 three pediatricians at the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto invented Pablum, the first vitamin and mineral-enriched pre-cooked baby food. The hospital, the second oldest children’s hospital in North America, licensed Pablum and received royalties for a number of years, which it funneled into research efforts.

But it’s hard to see how benefits will devolve to servicemen and women individually or collectively when you buy HOOAH bars or drinks. Specificity would help. One of the strengths of the breast cancer stamp from the US Postal Service is that you know the money goes to the National Institutes of Health to search for treatments and cures.

What we get from HOOAH are vague generalities about improving diet, safety and quality of life for servicemen and women. This is the weakness of licensing deals as cause-related marketing; because no ‘extra’ money changes hands it muddles the appeal.

I have one other complaint. The packaging and the ad have more visual clichés than a rap video. My foreign readers will probably bemoan all the flag waving in the HOOAH ad. My response is that it plays to its audience. Nonetheless, I would certainly vote for HOOAH to dial it back a little.

Wall Street Journal reporter Amy Chozick called HOOAH’s approach a “marketing conceit,” and that’s well put. Conceit means fanciful. If HOOAH would have relied more on transparency and specificity and less on conceit, this would be a better campaign.

Hobby Lobby and Christian Cause Marketing

Higher Cause Marketing

Let’s try a thought experiment.

Suppose you’re a dominant retail player in a fast-growing $30 billion segment. Suppose your founder and CEO was number 242 on the Forbes list of richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of some $1.5 billion. Suppose you had 386 outlets in 30 heartland states. Suppose your sales are expected to come in around $1.8 billion in 2007. Suppose you have your own in-house ad agency and a history of advertising both weekly specials along with holiday time image campaigns.

Now suppose your company is avowedly Christian and everybody knows it.

Do you/should you do Christian-themed cause-related marketing? If yes, who would your partners be?

This thought was sparked by the ad above run on Easter Sunday by Hobby Lobby, the privately-held retailer founded and owned by David Green, age 64.

Since confession is good for the soul, let me confess that I’ve never been in a Hobby Lobby store and I don’t know if they do any cause marketing or not.

But the ad… a kind of throwback to 30 years ago when every newspaper in America would print a Christian sermon on Easter Sunday… made me wonder if Hobby Lobby could or should do Christian cause marketing.

A few more pertinent facts. Hobby Lobby is one of the few retailers of its size in America that still observes the traditions of the blue laws and doesn’t open its stores on Sunday.

Its Statement of Purpose includes the following:

“Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating in a manner consistent with Biblical principles…Serving our employees and their families by establishing a work environment and company policies that build character, strengthen individuals, and nurture families. Providing a return on the owners’ investment, sharing the Lord’s blessings with our employees, and investing in our communities.”

Hobby Lobby lists on its website the ministries it supports among them the Bible translation charity Wycliffe, and a Christ-centered boarding school for troubled kids called Harbor House.

Finally, Hobby Lobby gets so many requests for help from charities and worthy individuals and institutions that it feels compelled to put up this disclaimer on its website:

“The owners of Hobby Lobby wish it were possible to respond affirmatively to the numerous appeals for contributions that are received each day from the hundreds of communities that we serve. Knowing that it is impossible for us to contribute merchandise and or funds to all the fine groups that are a part of each city, Hobby Lobby gives special consideration to churches, schools and national charitable organizations such as Boy Scouts, & Girl Scouts by extending a 10% discount on merchandise purchased by these groups. In this manner we offer our support to these local organizations.”

Given all this, could or should Hobby Lobby take on Christian cause marketing relationships and campaigns in their stores?

I think they could, but they’d have to be very careful about what the promoted products are and who their charity partners are. Otherwise there could be some denominational problems. As for prospective charity partners it seems to me that their best bet might be international relief and organizations, since Christian relief has such a strong and well-known record abroad.

But should they? My answer is yes again, if it’s right. Hobby Lobby’s statement of purpose includes operating on Biblical principles like charity and strengthening employee’s lives. The right cause marketing campaign could do both.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment.

Finesse Shampoo and Conditioner and Locks of Love

Not Exactly Golden Locks

How do you target Gen Y, the 76 million [in the States] ‘Millennials’ born between 1978 and 2000? Well a cause campaign is not a bad idea because the members of Gen Y are characterized as idealistic, optimistic, honest and sincere. And they like to shop.

Few of them remember the time before the Internet and they’re the most technologically savvy generation ever. We used to say they were the most wired generation, but that’s no longer true; if I have any Gen Y readers they’re probably reading this on their cell phones.

But what kind of cause appeals to them?

United Way is for people who drive Buicks.

Susan G. Komen is for the mothers and grandmothers of Gen Y.

Make-A-Wish? You’re getting warmer.

Finesse hair shampoo and conditioner picked Locks of Love, the Lake Worth, Florida nonprofit that solicits donations of natural hair which is then manufactured into wigs and distributed to kids and adults with long-term hair loss, usually due to a condition called alopecia areata.

Locks of Love generates publicity like crazy. Their story is straightforward, emotional, and particularly well-suited for television; a kid cuts 10 inches off his or her head, puts it in bag and sends it to Locks of Love to become a wig for a bald kid. I must know half a dozen kids who are presently growing their hair out for Locks of Love or who have done so in the past.

Here’s Finesse’s campaign. A contest began July 17, 2006 to pick a model for their advertising in 2007. Entrants submitted their names and a before and after picture that shows how their “hairstyle has adjusted.” The contest doesn’t explicitly require that the entrants cut their hair for Locks of Love, but it appears that many did just that.

Finesse then invited people to vote for their favorite entrant. The contest ended March 31, 2007. Finesse will name the winner on May 15 from among 10 finalists. Finesse will donate $1 to Locks of Love for every contest entry it received. I may be reading it wrong, but it looks like a grand total of 923 people entered the contest. If that’s the case Finesse isn’t exactly going to have to crack open the corporate vault for Locks of Love.

I like the promotion, but it seems half-hearted. I hope I’m wrong about the donation amount. But whether I am or not, they should have based the donation on the votes, not the entries. To make that worth their while they could have used the voting mechanism to generate usable information like a registration that collected names and email. Or they could have asked a short list of survey questions. They could have provide means for the contest entrants to email their friends as apart of the registration process.

And where’s Finesse on MySpace, YouTube or any of the social media so popular with kids? Why wouldn’t they encourage entrants… if they cut their hair for Locks of Love… to film it and put it on YouTube?

If Finesse tries this contest in 2007-8, there's a number of improvements that could be made.

World-Beating Cause Marketing II

Fortunes at the Bottom of the Pyramid

The four campaigns we talked about in Thursday’s post are all classic examples of ‘the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’ thinking.

The book of the same name by University of Michigan scholar C.K. Prahalad, lays out how technology… and new ways of thinking about customers… can enable companies to deliver products and services of value to the four billion people across the globe who live on less than $2 a day.

In a similar way, these four single-element campaigns raise big money, not by asking for large donations, but by asking for small ones. The US Postal Service Breast Cancer Semipostal Stamp generates just six pennies at a pop! The BoxTops for Education campaign from General Mills just 10 cents.

Needless to say, this flies in the face of conventional wisdom in fundraising which goes something like this: ‘it’s just as much work to ask for a modest donation as a big one, so you might as well ask for a big one.’ In other words, focus on the top of the pyramid.

That’s rational thinking. But it leaves money on the table.

What can we learn from these four world-beating, large-scale, long-standing, big-money, single-element cause-related marketing campaigns?

At least the following:

1). Earnestness is fine. But a sense of humor doesn’t hurt. The Red Nose Day in the U.K. has a very serious mission; alleviating poverty in Africa and helping the disadvantaged in the UK. But Red Nose Day is fun and light-hearted. Even when they show the people being helped, they avoid taking the pity approach.

2). The best campaigns have a media component. Labels for Education is in almost every FSI Campbell’s puts out (see above). BoxTops is on nearly every box that leaves General Mills, year-round. Red Nose Day takes over the BBC programming for an entire night and is promoted on-air before and after Red Nose Day is over. Many US Post Offices perpetually leave up posters for the breast cancer stamp.

3). Expand your ‘circle of trust.’ General Mills could have been content to keep their campaign entirely in house. Instead they broadened to include other non-competing brands. Ziploc and others like it because they get to participate in a proven campaign at low cost. General Mills likes it because it expands the reach of its BoxTops brand. Schools and students reap the rewards of General Mills outside the box thinking, pun intended.

4). You may have to move heaven and earth or worse…US Congress… to put your campaign in place. Labels for Education put its whole merchandise catalog online. BoxTops for Education conducts all its business via the Internet, except the shipping of boxtops. Red Nose Day puts together a monster comedy show on television, plus it suggests dozens if not hundreds of ways for regular folks to do grassroots, plus it has to have in place themed merchandise, drop off points and donation collection procedures. No wonder they only do it every other year. In order for the US Postal Service to charge more than the standard rate for first class postage it literally required an act of Congress.

5). If the cause has real appeal, you don’t have to offer pricing discounts. When cause-related marketing is ultimately realized it preserves pricing power. The breast cancer stamp costs more than regular first class postage, not less. And still they’ve sold so many that $52 million has been raised. All you brand managers think about that for a moment. All you charity marketers ask yourself if your brand is that strong.

6). Big numbers and technology are your friends. The US Postal Service annually prints 35 billion stamps. That’s a big number. There are about 70 million schoolkids in the United States. That’s a big number too. The power at the bottom of the pyramid is the power of large numbers. Technology can help you effectively and efficiently reach down to the bottom of the pyramid. When Campbell’s first started Labels for Education, they had to print and distribute their catalog. No longer. Red Nose Day allows you to make your pledge and fulfill it online.