In addition to protecting jewelry and jewelry owners since 1913, Jewelers Mutual Insurance Company has a long history of giving through its Charitable Giving Fund, which supports critical needs of the community and its employees through financial gifts and support of volunteerism. Realizing that its charitable giving philosophy can help enhance engagement with its policyholders, in 2016 Jewelers Mutual designed the Band Together campaign that helped meet a number of objectives:
Similar to previous years, Jewelers Mutual is committed to help make a difference in the communities that the company serves. However, instead of simply sending monetary gifts to local charities, in 2016 Jewelers Mutual wanted its policyholders in the U.S. and Canada to have a say in which charities should receive these gifts. With the help of social media, an influencer marketing and a traditional public relations program, the Band Together campaign was brought to life.
A landing page was created on its website for participants to cast their votes for how Jewelers Mutual's total gift of $2 million—largest one-time donation in the company's history—should be distributed among the three causes of health, home and hunger and the associated nonprofit organizations to benefit – St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Habitat For Humanity, Feeding America (USA) and Food Banks Canada.
Jewelers Mutual's policyholders, as well as the general public, voted for their cause of choice to receive the top donation of $1 million. The cause with the second highest number of votes received $700,000 and the cause with the third-most votes received a $300,000 donation.
To drive traffic to the voting page, Jewelers Mutual leveraged the power of social media, lifestyle/fashion influencers and traditional PR.
Social Media: Jewelers Mutual encouraged voting through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. The company utilized the hashtag #JMBandTogether across all social channels with every post related to the campaign to increase searchability and identification of the conversations had around the effort. The charities that were being voted on were also instrumental in getting the word out via their respective social media channels.
Influencers: Jewelers Mutual worked with 50 lifestyle/fashion influential bloggers and 60 content seeders who have large audience base across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. These influencers, such as bloggers from TheLala.com and Whatthedoost.com, organically promoted the Band Together campaign and Jewelers Mutual by posting to their social channels and blogging in a way that's authentic to their voice and relevant to their audience.
Traditional PR: Jewelers Mutual implemented a PR program to increase awareness of the campaign. The program took place before and post voting and generated coverage in jewelry trade (Instore Magazine and JCK Online), local (Post-Crescent, WFRV Channel 5 and WLUK Fox 11) and national media (Los Angeles Times and exposure during the live broadcast of TODAY and Good Morning America that translated to $1.6 million Advertising Value Equivalent – the monetary value Jewelers Mutual received from these articles.
The campaign started on July 11, 2016 and ended on July 31, 2016 and received 40,283 total votes. The total monetary donation made by Jewelers Mutual was divvied up as follow:
Tangible results consisted of:
Jewelers Mutual also received positive feedback from the charities, commenting that they have not seen such dedication to a campaign of this magnitude.
"What an incredible and humbling honor to be voted to receive $1 million from Jewelers Mutual Insurance Band Together campaign and to be included with the remarkable work of Habitat for Humanity and Feeding America," said Richard Shadyac Jr., president and CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which finds cures for life-threatening diseases and save children's lives.
"Food Banks Canada was thrilled to be one of four selected nonprofits for Jewelers Mutual's Band Together campaign and we were honored to co-represent the hunger cause alongside Feeding America," said Pam Jolliffe, executive director at Food Banks Canada, which provides 195,000 meals to those in need across Canada.
