Companies: Nike, Microsoft
Organizations: Ninemillion.org, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Timeframe: 2006, ongoing
Take a child. Add a soccer ball. Then picture both in a small, mostly dirt field between grass-thatched huts in Africa, or among abandoned buildings in the borderlands between
Central Europe and Asia. These are not the usual elements of an award-winning PR campaign or partnership. But in the case of Nike, Inc., the UN Refugee Agency, Microsoft and some
other partners, these were precisely the catalysts needed to begin creating a powerful agent for change.
The world's refugee youth are "the forgotten of the forgotten." Children such as Paw Wah, an ethnic Karen who lives in Tham Hin, one of the world's most densely crowded refugee
camps, must cope with the lifestyle of outcasts, living far from home and learning to tolerate unfamiliar food. Unlike many refugee children, however, Paw Wah has the chance to
entertain dreams and pursue an education and even play, luxuries many children around the world must forgo.
Now 15, she wants to be a doctor. She plays the guitar and sings, and she loves soccer - or "football," as most of the world dubs the game. She wouldn't mind being a female
boxer, either. The fact that she can contemplate these dreams and enjoy many parts of her life is due largely to the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and
ninemillion.org, as well as corporate sponsors Nike and Microsoft.
The partnership was something of a case of "strange bedfellows," bringing together a well-established, global, nonprofit organization, a computer and software giant, and a
sporting goods corporation. Each brought a unique set of skills and resources to the table that made the campaign more than the sum of its individual part(ner)s.
Says Erin Dobson, director of corporate responsibility communications at Nike, "Microsoft brought to the table the ability to see the digital world and the uses of the digital
world. It also brought access to that through what it does with MSN and its many arms. What the UNHCR brought was a deep understanding of the issue and its successes and
limitations, and where we might go with telling the stories of individual refugees. What Nike brought was a constant push for authenticity and realness and a connection with the
consumer and the audience."
Keep It Simple, Keep It Real
It was important to keep the issue and message simple and "move toward something everyone can grasp and not get caught in a lot of hubris, as these issues can do, which loses
the message for the consumer," adds Dobson.
Jill Zanger, manager of corporate responsibility communications for Nike, adds that Nike brought other crucial elements to this campaign: a newly designed soccer ball, retail
outlets that could help spread the message, and the knowledge of the impact and empowerment of sports and the simple functions of play for children in refugee settings.
Ninemillion.org is a global campaign led by the UNHCR, created with founding partners Nike and Microsoft/MSN. It represents the estimated nine million refugee young people
around the world, many of whom have no opportunities to learn or play. Nike, which had been working with ninemillion.org for years to address education and other issues facing
refugee girls, focused on what it knew; for example, it had previously created specially designed and culturally sensitive sport apparel for Muslim girls in the Dadaab camp in
Kenya.
As is often the case, timing was critical to the program's success. The UNHCR and its corporate partners decided to launch ninemillion.org on World Refugee Day (June 20, 2006).
The timing leveraged a critical PR best practice, according to Zanger: "We knew how to maximize the right moment, when the world was already listening on an issue or topic. In
this case, we had the infrastructure of World Refugee Day with the UNHCR to use as a launching pad. This worked to focus and drive the message, to work with established media that
were focused on that day."
The message was very simple: Help them learn. Help them play.
But getting to that point wasn't so simple. One of the challenges the partnership faced was the sheer vastness of the situation, and the sense that many consumers feel
overwhelmed by the number of worthy causes in the world and their inability to contribute in all the venues where help was desperately needed. In addition, the campaign needed
legs to move beyond the sense that once a crisis is over and the news headlines fade, the problem is resolved. In fact, Zanger says, "Once each crisis was somewhat settled, we had
to deal with long-term situations for children as refugees, which for a child could compromise their lifetime."
Ninemillion.org was designed to tell the stories of individual children around the world living in refugee camps. Trips by the team to parts of Europe, Asia and Africa that
were subject to crises of war or poverty culminated in powerful video footage, still photographs and interviews with refugee children, clearly demonstrating their needs in a
straightforward way that issued an immediate call to action. The stories were then delivered by a means that would reach people throughout the world who might not otherwise be
able to access the tales on more traditional vehicles: the Internet.
In addition to joining the journeys to gather information and collect the children's stories, Nike also clearly recognized the power of a ball and the power of sport to make a
difference in the life of a refugee child, for whom child's play is often an unobtainable concept. Nike created a high-performance ball that would withstand the harsh conditions
of refugee camps and help reduce waste. The challenge was to make a ball that met Nike's standards of performance while also meeting a higher measure of sustainability.
The result was a ball that is four times more abrasion-resistant than the average stitched football (or soccer ball). Through ninemillion.org, Nike produced 40,000 of these
balls to be distributed by UNHCR to refugee camps.
But the story doesn't end there: The balls are for sale this winter at Nike retail locations around the world, and all net proceeds from the sale of the ball will go to the
UNHCR to benefit the ninemillion.org fund. About two-thirds of that money will be distributed by UNHCR to support education in refugee communities, and the other third will fund
access to customized sport and play programs, with an emphasis on getting girls and young women onto the playing fields.
Nike developed creative content for ninemillion.org with Wieden+Kennedy and Joint Editorial, and the stories can be seen at http://www.ninemillion.org and within a public service announcement that features global football star Ronaldo, the Goodwill Ambassador for
this effort.
Nike's retail arm also produced ninemillion.org T-shirts to help raise awareness and funds, and Nike stores devoted retail space to the ninemillion.org story. As with the sale
of the new soccer balls, half of the sale price of the T-shirts (the net proceeds) will go to the UNCHR to benefit the ninemillion.org fund. Marketing teams all over the world are
involved in spreading the message, and the Nike Foundation committed a $1 million challenge grant to help launch the campaign.
Real Results
Since its inception, the ninemillion.org campaign has drawn 2 million people to its Web site and raised roughly $1.5 million. Some of this money has already helped such non-
governmental organizations as Toronto-based Right To Play International, which seeks to improve children's lives through sports. Most of those donations are to be invested in
Kenyan and Ugandan refugee communities to sponsor local education and sports projects.
In addition, other media and stakeholder stories have grown out of partnerships with rap star Eminem and English soccer team Manchester United. Eminem designed and auctioned a
line of sneakers for the cause, splitting the proceeds between ninemillion.org and another foundation he supports.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres underscored the importance of collaboration between the UN and the private sector by highlighting the new joint
initiative during an address at the World Economic Forum in late January.
"Today, UNHCR is trying to give a voice to some nine million refugee children," Guterres said at a luncheon kicking off the start of the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland,
where ninemillion.org was a highlight. "But we can't do it alone. If the refugee voice is to be heard and understood, we need all the help we can get. And that's where our
corporate partners and ninemillion.org come in."
Microsoft Corp. recently announced its continued collaboration with the UNHCR and ninemillion.org with the Click for the Cause initiative. Each Internet search performed at
http://click4thecause.live.com using Microsoft's search service, Live Search, through March 2007 will generate a financial donation to ninemillion.org. The Live Search donation
program will be coupled with an online awareness campaign for ninemillion.org to include advertising and editorial space on MSN and microsoft.com in 26 markets around the world.
For more information, visit http://nine-million.spaces.live.com.
The ninemillion.org campaign has left each of its partners with a resonant takeaway. For Nike, one of the lessons learned was "really working within the partnership and UNHCR
to focus the issue and the message, because the message is so big and can take so many facets," says Zanger. "In our case, we needed to focus on the message of sport and education
and the difference and impact it can have on young people's lives, particularly those excluded from these things by circumstances."
Dobson notes that one key learning all the partners took away is that "everyone who came into it had the clear goal of raising the profile of the issue, and not to grab
headlines for themselves. The program gained authenticity, which can be lacking when corporate partners do this kind of campaign."
The Nike ninemillion.org campaign is one of the finalists in the PR News CSR awards program.
Contacts: Erin Dobson, 503.671.2682, [email protected]; Jill Zanger, 503.532.0316, [email protected]
Blogging For A Cause
Corporate social responsibility turns up in the darnedest places, and it can be a powerful way to create change by turning employees into cause ambassadors. Steve Clayton, who
writes a blog he calls Geek In Disguise, has worked for Microsoft for more than nine years, starting as a systems engineer focused on Internet technologies and growing to a
position with the UK Partner Group as CTO.
He wrote on his blog, with reference to the ninemillion.org Web site when it launched last summer: "The site is just outstanding. I've just spent 30 minutes watching videos
that put the hairs up on the back of your neck and give you a warm glow. I dare you to watch them and then not click on the 'donate' button. The work this campaign is doing is
amazing and incredibly humbling. It puts things into perspective."
Clayton's work with Microsoft has put him in touch with many interesting partners over the years, and he says, "It's also reminded me that software can change the world and how
much I enjoy telling stories about Microsoft and software.
"I think it's great that Microsoft can be a part of projects like this, and it does make me think how much I'd like to work in the citizenship side of our business at times.
When my friends, family, customers and partners give me a hard time about their problems with [Microsoft] products (and you can get pretty worn down by that stuff at times), it's
projects like this...that remind me that working for a great company is, well...great. Equally, it's great to see a company like Nike, whom I admire for the innovation, get
involved in this."
He recommended to his readers last summer that, "on a weekend when many of us will sit back with our families, enjoy the sunshine and watch England vs. Portugal in the World
Cup, take a few moments to watch Ronaldo in a slightly different way in the video at ninemillion.org. The power of a ball is truly amazing and you can help them make a
difference.
"'Thought provoking' would quite an understatement."
Clayton didn't work on the ninemillion.org program. But his blog and others will surely help to push its good work forward.
Contact: Steve Clayton, [email protected], +44 7802 882 622. Visit his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01