CELEBRITY
BUY AID:
USING
PRODUCT LABELS TO MOBILIZE PUBLIC ACTION ON POVERTY
By George Ortega
Click on this photo for an enlargement
Please
note that use of the names and images of the celebrities
in the product design examples depicted does not assert or imply any
endorsement of Celebrity Buy Aid or of Profit-Donation
Capitalism by the celebrities whose names and images are
used, nor does it assert or imply any association
between the author of the Profit-Donation Capitalism
site and any of the celebrities. The product
labels depicted are for
example only. They do not exist outside of these
examples, and are not being produced or sold to consumers anywhere.
I. INTRODUCTION
II.
RATIONALE AND BENEFITS OF THE CAMPAIGN
III. RATIONALE FOR THE
PRODUCT LABELS APPROACH
IV. CAMPAIGN DESIGN
IV.A Rationale and Benefits of Disseminating
Poverty Info. Via Product Labels
Estimate of the number of Products CBA can sell during
it’s first year
Additional benefits of educating the public on poverty
via product labels
IV.B
Financial Framework and Details of Marketing the Food
Products
Ownership
Start-up financing
Product selection
Product testing and market research
Product manufacturing and distribution
IV.C Significance and Organization of the Product
Launch Event
IV.D Importance of the 0.7 Percent Pledge
Background on the 0.7 percent pledge
Effects of mobilization around 0.7
IV.E
Benefits from the Promotion of the Campaign
V. PRODUCT
MARKETING DETAILS AND PROFIT – SALES PROJECTIONS
V.A
Example – Newman’s Own Salad Dressing
V.B
Projection – CBA’s Salad Dressing
V.C Food
Product Markets
V.D
Representative Products
V.E
Results
VI. THE CAMPAIGN BY STEPS
VI.1
Determining CBA’s Financial Structure
VI.2
Recruiting the Celebrities
VI.3 Notifying Poverty NGOs
VI.4 Financing CBA
VI.5 Product Selection
VI.6 Poverty Messages Determination
VI.7 Product Manufacturing and Distribution
VI.8 Product Label Design
VI.9 Product Recipes and Testing
VI.10 Pre-Product Launch Publicity
VI.11 Product Launch Event
VI.12 Product Launch Follow-Up
VII. KEY CONCEPTS AND
CAMPAIGN SUMMARY
I. INTRODUCTION
Celebrity Buy Aid,
(CBA): Using Product Labels to Mobilize Public Action
on Poverty calls on the vast network of poverty
non-governmental organizations, (NGOs)
to work together under the direction of a central
organizing NGO in a campaign to market a line of 20-30
supermarket products worldwide. Marketing the products
can generate substantial revenue for the NGOs, however,
the labels of the products achieve CBA’s main objective;
educating and mobilizing citizen action on poverty and
the 0.7% Pledge. Although an ambitious enterprise, CBA
is actually far less difficult and risky than it might
at first appear.
By recruiting
celebrities to lend their names and images to each of
the 20-30 products, and by activating the campaign
through a widely promoted product launch event,
marketing the products can be conducted as an
essentially risk-free venture from both financial and
public relations standpoints. Based on two surveys,
the worst case scenario for the campaign would result in
the sale of hundreds of millions of individual products,
the label on each of them educating the public about
poverty and the 0.7% pledge, while earning some revenue for
the NGOs. Profits from even a “failed” campaign would
easily cover all incurred costs, including the
manufacturing, distributing and promoting of the 20-30
products. The purpose of this proposal is to ask you to
help create CBA by encouraging a poverty NGO to organize
and implement the campaign.
II. RATIONALE AND
BENEFITS OF THE CAMPAIGN
It is widely
acknowledged that public education and mobilization is
the starting point and key to increasing the funding of
NGOs working to end poverty, and to increasing the level
of assistance to poor countries by governments of the
world’s rich countries. On their own, direct mail, TV
and radio, print media, rock concerts, and internet
campaigns have thus far been woefully inadequate as
strategies for sufficiently educating and mobilizing the
public on poverty. An effective new strategy is
desperately needed by poverty NGOs. The strategy this CBA proposal describes differs from less effective
predecessors in several important ways, and features the
following benefits:
A. It highlights a sharply focused message; Over the
last 48 years, the world’s 22 richest
countries, as classified by the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development,
(OECD), have
failed to fulfill their 1970 pledge to donate 0.7% of
their GDP annually to poor countries.
To
frame the pledge in easily understandable terms, if
these countries were a person earning $50,000 per year,
0.7% of that income would amount to $350 annually. For
the leaders of the richest countries to continue
defaulting on their government's promise to provide the
poorest countries, who lose 29,000 children daily to
largely preventable, poverty-related causes, this very
small percentage of their GDP is dishonorable, and
unacceptable.
B. It utilizes, as its
information dissemination vehicle, a unique and bold
approach; delivering its message into the households of
hundreds of millions of people throughout the
industrialized world via the labels on the supermarket
products that shoppers purchase routinely.
C. Rather than costing NGOs precious
resources, as with mass mailings, or generating no
direct revenues, as with donated media, the “product
labels” strategy educates and mobilizes the public in a
cost-free way that concurrently generates both direct
and indirect revenue for the NGOs.
D. It is vastly, and appropriately, more
ambitious in its scope and promise than past campaigns.
III. RATIONALE FOR THE
PRODUCT LABELS APPROACH
The idea of using
product labels as a cost-free, revenue-generating
poverty information dissemination vehicle evolved from
four distinct, but related, observations.
A. Supermarket products can be very easily
and profitably marketed. It is well known that actor
Paul Newman and author Alex Hotchner, two individuals
with absolutely no food marketing experience, generated
over $500 million in profits between 1982 and 2018 by
marketing a line of over forty successful food
products under the brand name “Newman’s Own.”
B. Newman’s Own achieved its huge success
while donating all $500 million in after-tax profits to
thousands of charitable causes.
C. When the author of
this CBA proposal asked one hundred supermarket shoppers
if they would choose food products whose profit would be
used to help end world hunger over competing comparable
brands, 92% of these shoppers answered “yes.” Newman’s
Own replicated this survey, without specifying a
charitable cause, and reported a 76% “yes” response.
These two surveys indicate that the strategy of selling
supermarket products to inform the public about, and
generate revenue for, ending poverty holds substantial
promise.
D. As Newman’s Own proved, the key
challenge to successfully promoting food products can be
easily met at virtually no cost through a product launch
event attracting wide international press coverage.
IV. CAMPAIGN DESIGN
To motivate the
enthusiasm and confidence needed to encourage the
creation of CBA requires that the staff members you
assign to this project understand;
A. The rationale and
benefits of disseminating poverty information via
product labels.
B. The conceptual and financial framework, and details,
of marketing the food products.
C. The significance and organization of the CBA product
launch event.
D. The importance of public knowledge of, and
mobilization on, the 0.7% pledge.
E. Benefits of the international network of poverty
NGOs’ promotion of the CBA Campaign.
Because Newman’s Own has
compellingly demonstrated the feasibility of marketing
and promoting food products whose entire profit is
donated to charitable causes, their business model and
the details of their huge success are used throughout
this proposal to describe the marketing and promotion
features of CBA. Very fortunately, Paul Newman and his
partner, Alex Hotchner, published a book in 2003 titled
Shameless
Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good: The Madcap
Business Adventure by the Truly Oddest Couple
wherein they
describe their business model. It is strongly
recommended that your project staff familiarize
themselves with the facts and details of Newman’s Own
presented in that book, as well as with the articles
cited in this text. Please note that because
Newman’s Own does not make its records public, this CBA
proposal presents Newman’s Own data published in the
book and articles appearing in the press.
IV.(A) Rationale
and benefits of disseminating poverty information via
product labels
Rather than NGOs paying to
bring their message to the public, or relying on donated
media, CBA’s approach of marketing food products
empowers NGOs to disseminate their message to a far
wider international audience in a way that actually
generates income.
· Estimate
of the number of products CBA can sell during it’s first
year
During the first 29
months in business, Newman’s Own sold 18,705,555 bottles
of salad dressing.
Extrapolating from that figure an average annual sale of
7.7 million items, we can predict first year sales of
over 7.7 million for each of the 20-30 CBA
products marketed. Accordingly, if CBA decides to
market 25 products, the campaign can expect to sell at
least 193 million items each year.
The following additional
factors should substantially add to the above base
prediction for items sold during the first and
subsequent years:
1. The product launch
event, promoted by not just one primary celebrity, as
with Newman’s Own, but with approximately 25
celebrities, will result in much wider press converge,
and proportionately stronger sales.
2. Newman’s Own
operated without a business plan and without paid
advertising until 1997 when it hired Tom Indoe, a
retired former executive with Del Monte and RJR Nabisco,
as its first professional COO. During the subsequent
six years, Newman’s Own’s line of salad dressings’
market share increased from 2.1% to 5%. By operating under a business plan, and devoting a
portion of its budget to paid advertising from its
onset, CBA can expect similarly larger market shares.
Additional benefits of educating the public on poverty
via products and their labels
Along with presenting key
facts on poverty to the international public, CBA
products and their labels can educate and mobilize
public action in many ways including the following:
-
Events notification
-
“End Global Poverty”
bumper stickers enclosed in product boxes
-
School projects
-
Ongoing changes to
style and content of the messages
-
Progress reports on
poverty reduction
-
0.7% description and
current status
IV.(B) Financial
framework and details of marketing the food products
Ownership
This section describes
options for who would actually market the CBA food
products and own the companies.
Option one would be to
follow the example of Newman’s Own, and have each of the
celebrities own their company. The celebrities would run
their company like Paul Newman does, as an “S”
corporation that must pay taxes and donate all of its
profit before December 31 of each year. Under this
option, the celebrities would each provide the $106,000
(2018 dollars) in startup costs per product.
Under option two, a
group of about 20-30 poverty NGOs would each own
a food company, and use their tax-exempt status to earn
higher revenues than possible through an S corporation. With this option, the celebrities would lend their name
and image to the packaging, take part in the product
selection process, and attend the product launch event. Along with the tax benefit, this option would provide
the advantage of granting each NGO full control over how
its earnings are used. This control would, naturally,
enable each NGO to apply those earnings to its own
programs.
Option three would be
best for NGOs with very limited finances. Under this
option, a group of several NGOs would partner together
so that the start-up financing would be affordable to
each of them. They would, together, agree on how to
divide costs, how profits would be distributed among the
group, and how product label space would be
apportioned.
Under Option four, a
single NGO would secure the entire financing for the
20-30 food products, and determine exactly how the
product profits would be used.
With all of these options,
the campaign would be planned, coordinated and
implemented by one central NGO. This organized
collaboration would streamline, and save money on, such
details as product selection, packaging and label
design, and campaign promotion.
Start-up financing
In 1982, by forgoing expensive market research,
conducting in-house product testing, outsourcing
manufacturing and distribution, and using no paid
advertising, Newman’s Own launched it’s salad dressing
with an investment of $40,000. Using
the Newman’s Own model, in 2006 dollars, it costs about
$106,000 to market a similar food product. For 25 CBA
products, that would represent an investment of $2.6 million. Depending on the CBA leadership’s
ability to attract volunteers to help promote the
campaign, additional costs should amount to no more than
an additional $1 million.
Product selection
Although Paul Newman personally choose which products to
market, it is recommended that an industry professional
be consulted to determine;
product quality vs.
advertising and promotion influence on product
success potential.
which product
categories provide the greatest opportunity for new
brands.
which products are
most easily replicated in price and quality.
Product testing and
market research
Paul Newman, a home gourmet, avoided expensive product
testing and market research costs by personally
approving the taste and ingredients for each of his
products, and by conducting his own in-house product vs.
competition taste-testing. Given his success with over forty products, and the
results of two surveys indicating a 92% and a 76% public
willingness to opt for “profits for cause” products over
those of competitors, it is recommended that CBA conduct
this phase of the campaign following the Newman’s Own
example of minimal market research expenditures.
Product manufacturing
and distribution
Outsourcing the manufacturing and distribution of the
products, as is done by Newman’s Own, is also
recommended for CBA products in order to minimize
start-up costs. The only suggested shift from the
Newman’s Own model would be to, after a period of two to
three years, consider forgoing the loyalty Mr. Newman
maintained toward his manufacturers, and establish
manufacturing plants for CBA products as a way of
maximizing profits.
IV.(C) Significance
and organization of the product launch event
It is common
knowledge in marketing that products judged by shoppers
as inferior in quality to competing products routinely
outsell their competitors because of effective
advertising and promotion. Following Newman’s Own
example, although CBA food products should be processed
to insure the highest quality, an effective promotion
campaign like the product launch event conducted for
Newman’s Own’s salad dressing will ensure that CBA
products compete aggressively with the products of food
industry giants.
For their product
launch, Newman and Hotchner rented out a small bar in
upper Manhattan for one evening, and staged a minor
media event. They invited reporters and camera crews from all of the
New York newspapers and from the Associated Press. The
event immediately received wide national and
international coverage, and within days Newman's Own was
inundated with orders from supermarkets like Shopwell,
A&P, Stop & Shop and others. By staging a
publicity event like the one Newman and Hotchner staged,
CBA can bring their line of 20-30 food products into
supermarkets throughout the world.
Celebrity power is the
key feature of this promotion. Paul Newman attracted
enough publicity from his small event to sell 7.7
million bottles of salad dressing during the subsequent
twelve months. One can easily imagine how much more
publicity and sales 20-30 celebrities would generate for CBA products from a larger event launching 20-30 food
products.
IV.(D) Importance
of the 0.7% pledge
Background on the 0.7 percent pledge
In 1970, the world’s 22
richest countries, as classified by the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), concluded
that to end extreme poverty would require annual
donations amounting to 0.7% of their Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), in Official Development Assistance (ODA),
to the world’s poorest countries. 0.7 percent of the
rich countries’ GDP represents a very small sum to these
countries; if these 22 richest countries were an
individual earning $50,000 annually, 0.7% of their
income would amount to only $350. As of 2005, the
world’s rich countries had been contributing, on
average, 0.33 of their GDP, or less than one half of the
pledged amount, and the U.S. has been the most
delinquent with an annual contribution of only 0.22% of
its GDP. In
2017, the pledge was met by
six countries
-
Britain, Denmark, The Netherlands, Luxemburg and Sweden.
The world’s richest
countries have more than enough annual income to,
without the slightest “felt” sacrifice, completely meet
the 0.7% pledge. The 0.7% pledge has not been met
during the last 37 years because citizens of those
countries have not been mobilized to demand that their
leaders fulfill the commitment. Such mobilization has
not yet taken place because virtually the entire the
public is unaware of the pledge, and its importance to
ending extreme poverty.
Effects of mobilization around 0.7
As the public learns how
insignificant a sum 0.7% of the rich countries’ GDP is,
they will be shocked and outraged that their leaders
have, for over three decades, been so negligent in
fulfilling their government’s pledge. This reaction can
be mobilized into a public outcry that the 22 richest
countries speedily and completely honor the 0.7%
pledge.
As a strategy for ending
extreme poverty, mobilizing the public to demand
fulfillment of the 0.7% pledge offers a huge reward.
Were this pledge fully met, ODA from rich countries
would increase from 0.33% of GDP, equaling $49 billion, to the full 0.7% of GDP amount
equaling $105
billion.
IV.(E) Benefits from the promotion of the CBA
Campaign
In recent years, the focus
among some NGOs has shifted from soliciting
contributions to mobilizing public pressure on
governments of rich countries to allocate additional
funding to the poorest countries. The international
network of poverty NGOs could provide CBA products
continuing and cost-free promotion at minimal cost
through the solicitations NGOs routinely mail to
prospective donors. NGOs could, for example, include in
their mailings wallet cards listing CBA’s 20-30 food
products as shopping reminders. As NGOs find a
substantial correlation between CBA products promoting
their organizations and increases in public
contributions, these NGOs will actively promote CBA, and
encourage the marketing of food products beyond the
initial 25-30.
V. PRODUCT
MARKETING DETAILS AND PROFIT – SALES PROJECTIONS
Because each specific
market is unique, different CBA food products would
succeed to varying degrees against competitors. Using
Newman’s Own’s first product, salad dressing, as an
example reveals how strongly CBA products can be
expected to sell.
V.(A) Example –
Newman’s Own salad dressing
In 1982, with a total
investment of $40,000, Newman’s Own introduced its first
product, salad dressing. Commanding less than 1% of a
market worth $600 million, it earned $3,204,335 in gross
sales during its first year. By outsourcing manufacturing and distribution, and
forgoing paid advertising, Newman’s Own’s dressing
earned an after-tax profit of $397,000 during that year. This profit, amounting to 12.5% of gross sales, is about
five times the food industry profit standard of 3.4% of
pre-tax sales.
V.(B) Projection –
CBA’s salad dressing
Using the Newman’s Own
model, it would cost
$106,000
in 2018 dollars to market a
salad dressing. If this dressing commanded 0.5% of
the current market worth $3 billion, it would earn $15
million in gross sales. Using the Newman’s Own
manufacturing, distribution and promotion model, CBA’s
product would earn a before-tax profit of $1,875,000 at
12.5% of gross sales, or a before-tax profit of $510,000 at the industry profit standard of 3.4% of gross sales
during its first year.
If each of the 25 food
CBA food products marketed earned a 0.5% share of
product markets with annual sales of $15 million, their
combined gross sales would amount to $375 million.
Before-tax earnings for the 25 products would amount to
$45 million using a 12.5% of gross sales profit
margin, and $12.7 million using a 3.4% of gross sales
profit margin. These figures highlight that even with a
marginal market share of 0.5%, (as contrasted with the
92% and 76% market share potentials suggested by the
shopper surveys) the 25 CBA food products could be
marketed at virtually no financial risk.
V.C Food Product
Markets
The following list of food
products, taken from Market Share Reporter,
presents annual U.S. sales figures on various specific
foods during the years 2003-04, and lends further insight into how much profit
various CBA products could earn each year:
Food Product |
Sales in
Billions of Dollars |
Year Ending |
Spaghetti/Marinara Sauces |
1.34 |
2003 |
Milk |
10.45 |
2004 |
Breakfast
cereals |
513.00 |
“ |
Fruit Beverages |
21.39 |
“ |
Juices and
Drinks, refrigerated |
3.81 |
“ |
Lunch Meat |
3.30 |
“ |
Breakfast Meat |
2.96 |
“ |
Cookies |
4.50 |
“ |
Yogurt |
2.68 |
“ |
Seasonal Candy
|
6.30 |
“ |
Frozen
Pizza |
2.54 |
‘ |
Frozen
Dinners |
1.13 |
“ |
V.4 Representative
Products
Below are sample designs depicting the back label and front labels of a potential CBA product. These
design samples suggest that CBA products are ideal vehicles for
communicating important information about poverty, and
how it can be ended. To view the labels at full size,
please double click on the titles or the products.
Please
note that use of the names and images of the celebrities
in the product design examples depicted below does not assert or imply any
endorsement of Celebrity Buy Aid or of Profit-Donation
Capitalism by the celebrities whose names and images are
used, nor does it assert or imply any association
between the author of the Profit-Donation Capitalism
site and any of the celebrities. The product
labels depicted are for
example only. They do not exist outside of these
examples, and are not being produced or sold to consumers anywhere.
Please click on the
titles to view the designs in full size.
Product
back label with poverty information
Bono’s Frozen Fish and Chips
Dinner
Click
on this photo for an enlargement
Oprah’s Raisin Oatmeal Cookies Sandra
Bullock’s Frozen Kentucky Fried Chicken
Angelina
Jolie’s Toasty O’s Cereal Brad
Pitt’s Frozen Pizza
Madonna’s
Frozen Lasagna
Cameron
Diaz’s Frozen French Fries
Note: While
the celebrities and foods chosen for these examples were
determined according to criteria presented in the table
below, a more comprehensive analysis of market factors
should be used to select the actual CBA endorsers and
products.
Celebrity |
Ranking on
Forbes’ Top 100 Celebrities |
Ranking on
Forbes’ 10 Most Generous Celebrities |
Work with the
ONE Campaign |
Favorite Food |
Bono |
|
1 |
Founder |
Fish and Chips |
Oprah |
3 |
10 |
|
Oat Meal Cookies |
Angelina Jolie |
35 |
6 |
Endorser |
Cheerios |
Sandra Bullock |
|
2 |
|
Kentucky Fried
Chicken |
Madonna |
|
|
Endorser |
Pasta with Meat
Sauce |
Brad Pitt |
20 |
|
Endorser |
Pizza |
Cameron Diaz |
70 |
|
Endorser |
French Fries |
Following is a
representative list of potentially superior choices for
CBA products in that they are packaged in boxes
that provide ample space for displaying detailed
information about poverty:
Food Product |
Size |
Food Product |
Size |
Non-Fat Dry Milk |
10-20 oz |
Shake and Bake |
5.5 oz |
Breakfast Cereal |
1-1.5 lb |
Cookie Mix |
14-20 oz |
Pasta
(Manicotti, Ziti, etc.) |
1-3 lb |
Taco Kit |
10-14oz |
Rice (Regular
and Instant) |
8-48 oz |
Instant Oat
Meal/Farina/Grits |
10-16oz |
Milk |
Qt and Gal |
Dog Biscuits |
24 oz |
Bread Mix |
1 lb |
Cat Food (Dry) |
18 oz |
Mashed Potatoes |
7-28 oz |
Beer Carton
(12-24 pack) |
12 fl oz |
Macaroni &
Cheese Dinner |
6-12 oz |
Sugar |
1 lb |
Cereal
for Babies |
8 oz |
Matzos |
10 oz |
|
|
|
|
Hamburger/Chicken Helper |
6-8 oz |
Frozen
Pie |
32 oz |
Cookies
and Crackers |
12-24 oz |
Frozen
Cake |
19 oz |
Pancake
Mix |
40 oz |
Frozen
Pizza |
1.5-2 lb |
Cereal
Bars |
10 oz |
Frozen
Garlic Toast |
9-12 oz |
Fruit
Drinks (10 pack) |
64 fl oz |
Frozen
Chicken Breasts |
12 oz |
Raisins
and Prunes |
12 oz |
Frozen
Fish Sticks |
12 oz |
Melba
Toast |
5 oz |
Frozen
Beef Patties |
32 oz – 3
lb |
Cake Mix |
2 lb |
Frozen Waffles |
20 oz |
Juice and
Drink Carton |
64 oz |
Frozen
French Toast |
13 oz |
Chicken/Beef Broth |
32 oz |
Frozen
Dinner |
9-16 oz |
Soda
Carton (12 pack) |
12 fl oz |
Frozen
Salisbury Steak |
32 oz |
Toaster
Pastry |
14-22 oz |
Frozen
Lasagna |
2-6 lb |
V.5
Results
To appreciate the
powerful promise CBA holds in mobilizing citizen action
on global poverty, one can imagine the press and TV
coverage that would follow CBA’s ambitious
“celebrity-powered” food product marketing campaign. As CBA product labels educate shoppers about poverty and
the 0.7% pledge, citizens could be mobilized around a
strongly focused message that political leaders would be
hard-pressed to deny or oppose.
VI.
THE CAMPAIGN BY STEPS
The CBA
campaign’s organizational structure is not complex. CBA
can be conducted through a series of steps that are
routinely implemented within both product marketing and
social cause promotion fields. To appreciate the
simplicity and promise of the product marketing
component, one can consider the following: Using a
$40,000 investment, actor Paul Newman and his neighbor,
author A.E. Hotchner, two individuals with absolutely no
food marketing experience, created Newman’s Own with a
line of over 40 products, and created the division
“Newman’s Own Organics,” that now markets over 70
products.
The first step in
creating CBA is for you to disseminate this proposal to
your NGO’s staff. If you decide to formally advance CBA, your next step would be to have someone, preferably
your executive director, disseminate this proposal to
individuals and NGOs you believe are capable of
organizing the campaign. It would be in your interest
to follow though and stay apprised of what group
ultimately decides to lead the campaign so that your
organization is appropriately promoted through CBA
product labels and your organization receives an
appropriate portion of CBA profits.
VI.1 Determining CBA’s
financial structure
Once an organization,
or group of individuals, has decided to lead CBA, its
first step should be to determine the financial
structure of the campaign, as described in section
IV.2. - The financial framework.
VI.2 Recruiting the
celebrities
After developing the
working plan for CBA, the leadership should begin
recruiting the 20-30 celebrities. At this point, only
their tentative, conditional, participation is
required. Celebrities can firm up their commitment when
they know which product each will be endorsing, which
other celebrities will be participating, and other
details of the campaign. Celebrity recruitment is an
important initial step that will facilitate subsequent
phases of the campaign, such as financing,
manufacturing, and promotion.
VI.3 Notifying
poverty NGOs
The CBA leadership
should then contact the network of poverty NGOs, and
begin establishing a coalition of NGOs to provide
ancillary support to the campaign. This coalition will
be especially helpful in promoting CBA prior to and
following the product launch.
VI.4 Financing CBA
With the backing of the
over 20 celebrities who will publicly represent CBA, the
CBA leadership would then secure financing for the
campaign. As noted in the IV.2 section - Start-up
financing, by using the Newman’s Own model, marketing
the 25 food products will cost no more than $3 million,
with up to an additional $1 million required for
organizational costs.
VI.5 Product selection
The CBA leadership’s
next step is to recruit a food industry professional to
help determine which food products can be manufactured
and marketed most successfully. When potential CBA
products have been narrowed down to about 75, the
celebrities can choose, and/or be assigned, which CBA
product will display their name and image.
VI.6 Poverty
messages determination
While product selection
is underway, the CBA leadership, working with the
coalition of NGOs who have been recruited to support the
campaign, would decide on the nature of the poverty
information to be displayed on product labels.
VI.7 Product
manufacturing and distribution
The next step is for the
CBA campaign to, with advice from the food industry
professional, contract with the manufacturing plants
that will make the products and the food brokerage firm
that will handle product sales and distribution.
VI.8 Product label
design
Artists would then be
recruited to design the “Celebrity Buy Aid” brand
labels, and the packaging for each product, featuring
the celebrities’ names and likenesses, and the poverty
information. The campaign’s brand name, “Celebrity Buy
Aid” will, of course, appear on all product labels.
VI.9 Product recipes and testing
The CBA leadership would
then assemble the gourmets who would, working with
personnel from the manufacturing plant(s), create the
recipes. The leadership would next bring together a
group of culinary experts like chefs and food critics to
approve the taste and ingredients for each product. As
this group creates the final recipe for each product,
the CBA leadership would, following the Newman’s Own
model, assemble an in-house taste testing group
comprised of ordinary shoppers that will compare the CBA
products with the products they will compete against on
supermarket shelves. Efforts should be made to create CBA products that are judged as better tasting than at
least two-thirds of the competition.
VI.10 Pre-product
launch publicity
Next, the CBA leadership
would develop and implement a pre-product launch
publicity campaign for CBA. Assisted by the network of
poverty NGOs, this phase will kick-start the
international public’s expectation of buying CBA food
products as a cost-free way to help end global poverty. This phase would be conducted through press releases,
web promotion, and celebrity interviews.
VI.11 Product
launch event
Planning the product
launch event should begin immediately after recruiting
the celebrities. Celebrities’ calendars are often
booked months in advance, and the sooner a date for the
CBA product launch event is set, the easier it will be
to ensure maximum celebrity attendance. The event would
be staged as a single press conference.
VI.12 Product launch follow up
Soon after the CBA
product launch event is staged, the campaign’s level of
success will begin to become clearly evident vis-à-vis
product sales. Several weeks following the event, the CBA leadership would issue press releases and stage a
second formal press conference. By reporting the sales
success of CBA products, and confirming for the public,
the poverty NGOs, and the celebrities how shoppers
throughout the world are helping to end extreme poverty
though buying CBA products, post-campaign publicity can
fuel CBA product sales.
During this phase, it is
important to inform the public that the principle aim of
CBA has been to raise public awareness of how little it
would cost the world’s richest countries to end extreme
poverty through fully meeting the 0.7% pledge. It is
important to highlight that while CBA products offer
shoppers a cost-free way to help end poverty, CBA
product profits would fall far short of the billions of
dollars each year that is required to end extreme
poverty.
Several months after the
product launch, the CBA leadership can consider the
prospect of launching additional CBA products endorsed
by the same, or other, celebrities.
VII. KEY CONCEPTS AND
CAMPAIGN SUMMARY
In 1970, the world
community concluded that ending extreme poverty required
an annual donation by the 22 richest countries equaling
0.7% of their GDP, and set a target date of 1975 for
this goal. Although
these rich countries have more than ample funds to end
extreme poverty, the political leaders of the richest
countries continue to default on their government’s
promise, and currently appropriate less than half of the
0.7% commitment each year.
These political leaders
will not meet their country’s 0.7% pledge, or
institute urgently needed trade reform and debt relief,
until the voting public strongly demands this action.
Citizens
cannot demand greater action from their
government on extreme poverty while they harbor several
powerful myths, including the following two fundamental
economic myths, regarding the issue:
A. Ending extreme
poverty is far too expensive.
B. The U.S. and other
rich countries have been extraordinarily generous in
their assistance to poor countries over the last three
decades.
The 0.7% pledge is an
especially effective public mobilization strategy in
that it refutes the above myths through a single
message. As the public also becomes aware that 29,000
children die each day from poverty, and understands how
little it would cost the 22 richest countries to save
those lives, citizens can be expected to increasingly
demand that their political leaders finally honor their
government’s 0.7% pledge.
CBA recognizes product
labels as a poverty information delivery vehicle that is
not only cost-free to poverty NGOs, but can generate
substantial revenues for funding the war on poverty. The CBA campaign is modeled after Paul Newman’s hugely
successful company, Newman’s Own, that marketed its
first product in 1982 with an investment of $40,000, and
has, to date, donated all $500+ million of its after-tax
profit to thousands of charities. CBA understands the
tremendous boost that celebrity endorsements can provide
CBA food products, and recommends that the campaign
recruit 20-30 celebrities to each represent a CBA
product.
Two surveys strongly suggest that if shoppers are
offered food products whose profit is used to help end
poverty, a great many would opt to buy these products. CBA can be conducted as an essentially risk-free
campaign from both financial and public relations
standpoints. As per the Newman’s Own model, the CBA
product launch event, attended by the 20-30 celebrities,
will attract massive international press coverage that
will ensure robust sales for the entire line of CBA
products. It is estimated that no more than five
million dollars will be needed to market and promote the
line of 20-30 CBA food products, and that this sum can
be recouped from sales within six months of the product
launch event.
References:
UN General Assembly Resolution 2626 (XXV),
October 24, 1970, para. 43
Jon Gertner, “Newman’s Own: Two Friends and a
Canoe Paddle,” New York Times, November
16, 2003, sec. 3., p. 4.
Newman and Hotchner, Shameless Exploitation,
pp. 47-49.
Based on The Consumer Price Index (See https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm).
Newman and Hotchner, Shameless Exploitation,
p. 33
Extrapolation from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
Newman and Hotchner, Shameless Exploitation,
p. 97.
Ibid. (Note: This figure may be low; on p. 204,
first year profit is reported as $920,000).
“Newman’s Own, Inc.” International Directory
of Company Histories, Vol. 37. St. James
Press, 2001. Reproduced in Business and Company
Resource Center. Farmington Hills; Mich.,: Gale
Group. 2006.
Market Share Reporter: An Annual
Compilation of Reported Market Share Data on
Companies, Products, and Services
(Detroit: Gale Research Inc. Annual, 2006).
Newman and Hotchner, Shameless Exploitation,
p. 49.
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