Nespresso came to Accompany Creative to develop an integrated social impact platform with the goal of celebrating and financially supporting local communities, while building an emotional connection with loyal consumers.
Rather than pitch causes for the brand to support, we turned to Nespresso’s own employees through their Employee Resource Groups, to understand the things they care about, starting first with Pride @ Nespresso. Insightful conversations and feedback, along with the brand’s core purpose of “empowering potential,” led us to select The Ali Forney Center (AFC), which protects LGBTQ+ youth from homelessness. These youth are 8x more likely to experience homelessness and the center offers all kinds of support, health services and emergency housing to over 2,000 NYC youth every year.
We brought together a meaningful synergy - the voices of Nespresso’s employees who selected the non-profit; an artist from the LGBTQ+ community - Justin Teodoro, and the mission and members of the non-profit itself, to create a multi-layered, visually arresting storytelling campaign across the brand’s owned channels, with additional appeal in earned media channels.
At the center of the program were limited edition, artist-designed coffee cups, saucers and accompanying graphic elements, with 100% of proceeds from mug sales going to support the Ali Forney Center.
We then engaged Nespresso's employees by creating a volunteer opportunity for them to partner with Justin to paint murals that would hang in AFC's youth shelters. Retail staff were also educated about AFC’s mission, how the funds would be used and the meaning behind each unique design so that they too could convey the passion and purpose one-on-one and have a common cause to rally behind with colleagues and customers.
Our collaboration with the Ali Forney Center caught the hearts and minds of Nespresso fans quickly -- with sales velocity more than double the projections and strong earned media coverage.
Overall the campaign achieved:
116% increase in sales performance above projection
70% increase in traffic at SoHo flagship store at program launch
105% increase in organic social engagement
300 million+ earned media impressions
The collaboration also had a powerful impact on the center with sales funding a $500,000 donation, which means more beds, more meals, more housing and more needed services for vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth.
The work also ignited a long-term platform at Nespresso -- The Things We Hold -- which is designed to engage BOTH employees AND consumers around an important cause and common connection, with more philanthropic capsule collections and campaigns rolling out this year and next.
