Cancer and Careers leverages the power of the beauty industry to raise awareness and funds to empower, educate and provide essential services to people with cancer so they can thrive in their workplace. Their innovative programs for survivors and healthcare professionals provide the vital support, tools, and information they need to navigate the practical and legal challenges that follow a diagnosis. Online, in print and in person Cancer and Careers helps 400,000 individuals each year, across all 50 states.
Beginning in 2013, QVC and CEW joined together to raise awareness and funds to help those with cancer thrive in the workplace through QVC® & CEW Present Beauty with Benefits. With 80% of the purchase price of donated merchandise benefitting Cancer and Careers – the goal of this event is to increase sales and engagement leading to an even bigger impact for those battling cancer. This multiplatform beauty event has delivered more than $9 million to Cancer and Careers. For 2019, QVC’s sister brand, HSN, joined the campaign.
To promote the 2019 event, Beauty with Benefits kicked off digitally on April 1, with special broadcast events on April 25. The broadcast event aired live on both QVC and HSN featuring different beauty products on both shows while also highlighting the work of Cancer and Careers and the stories of survivors. The 2019 event featured a total of 66 beauty brands including BECCA, Givenchy, MAC Cosmetics, Elizabeth Arden, Beauty Blender and BeautyBio. Of the 66 brands, six of them were not normally available at QVC, making them unique to this event. As an added factor, shoppers also received a special gift with their purchase, valued at a minimum of $208.
Additionally, this year, QVC and HSN tapped into social influencers including Kendall Kremer, Lauren McBride and Coco Bassey to connect with consumers about this charitable initiative. Many of these influencers have had their own experience with cancer, including one who fought a personal battle and another whose mom fought the disease. This extraordinary event truly proves that a little makeup can make a big difference.
The 2019 Beauty with Benefits event was a remarkable success. There were an impressive number of product sell outs including 35 of QVC’s items and 16 of HSN’s items, leading to HSN’s broadcast ending 20 min early due to complete product sell-out. The event successfully drove 3,000 customers and exceeded sales. This year’s team of influencers participated in a widely distributed PSA, and shared the promotion on their blogs and Instagram feeds and Instagram stories. Implementing social influencers led to 3.9 million social impressions. Through these efforts, Cancer and Careers’ web traffic was up nearly 70% throughout the day leading into the event. The team also saw great success using Facebook’s video “premiere” function for the Influencer organic social video, generating a reach of 120K, with 15K minutes viewed and 39K video views. For Instagram, there were half a million (508K) total impressions from feed posts. Additionally, QVC and HSN are on track to deliver $2,248,955 to Cancer and Careers for 2019, raising the total amount of funds raised to over $9.3 million since 2013.
