When retail giant Office Depot came calling, Joe Guzzardo knew it was his lucky day. As communications director for the National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR), Guzzardo
has a tough challenge: promoting awareness of autism, using the resources of a relatively small, non-profit agency. So, when Office Depot offered to help promote the cause, "it
was an incredible boost."
Office Depot attracts up to 5,000 requests each month for charitable assistance. The company started to rally around the cause of autism when a group of employees talked with
the communications staff about the condition; the campaign got a major endorsement when CEO Bruce Nelson approached the PR team with the desire to help raise awareness. The PR
team decided to help promote the cause after a thorough review showed that NAAR was legit, and that Office Depot's participation could make a substantial difference in NAAR's
goals.
Together, Office Depot's Director of Community Relations Mary Wong and PR Director Brian Levine set out to build a public-awareness campaign that would raise funds for autism
research and -- perhaps more important -- heighten the understanding among Office Depot staff and customers. At the end of 2002 the Office Depot team started talking to NAAR
about launching a campaign in all 870 North American Office Depot stores in time for National Autism Month in March 2003.
With that many stores to cover, it takes a fairly high degree of coordination to make this kind of campaign fly. "We're not into writing checks just to write checks. Every
charitable activity that we do is based on getting involved," Levine says. "So the complexity is internal as much as anything else: distributing the posters, making sure the
stores receive those, getting them out promptly and getting the employees to understand what it is all about."
Job one was to get managers up to speed, with detailed literature explaining the cause and the reason for Office Depot's involvement. Managers also get a "huddle note" with
talking points meant to help them convey the campaign themes to their employees, along with brochures and posters to mount on an in-store rack for the one-time, month-long
campaign.
Nor is this the first time Office Depot has taken such steps. The retailer also has ongoing partnerships with Junior Achievement, City of Hope, Toys for Tots, America's Second
Harvest, the Canadian Association of Food Banks, the Dream Foundation and Gifts in Kind International, among other organizations.
The Partner's Role
Before the posters and brochures could emerge, however, the PR team needed to coordinate with the NAAR about nailing down the medical basics about autism.
"We needed to give them some language the general public could identify with without getting too scientific or too technical," Guzzardo says. He created new language for the
campaign while also providing Office Depot with some existing items, such as a "Did you know?" fact sheet. As simplified as some of these may have been initially, Guzzardo found
himself having to tone them down. "They are looking for it in the most simplified format, with literally no technicalities to it at all."
Wong notes that for NAAR, producing the materials was a challenge. "They had never had anyone do anything like this for them before, and sometimes it was a mess," she says. In
order to keep NAAR's materials in line with the needs of her office, Wong kept up a steady stream of communications with the nonprofit partner. "We would outline it at each step:
'This is what I need, when I need it. This is how we are going to do it.' We would put together a very organized timeline to show them how we were going to do this going
forward."
As things progressed, various PR staffers in both organizations communicated on at least a weekly basis to ensure that logistical details were unfolding properly. Together,
they coordinated press outreach efforts -- largely in the distribution of an Office Depot press release -- and organized joint interviews in response to requests from local media.
Time consuming, to be sure, but also par for the course at Office Depot, where community outreach accounts for "a considerable amount of the responsibilities" in the PR shop, says
Levine.
Once she had the basic materials in hand Wong then produced the finished posters, brochures and so on, giving NAAR's information a more uniform look. In campaigns like these,
"we will put together our own materials, our own pamphlets and posters and so forth, so that the look at the feel of it will support our programs at Office Depot," she says. The
idea is not just to impress the customers, but also to get the employees stoked. "It is important to us that our employees understand why we are supporting these organizations.
We want to show them how we are making a difference as a company. It's important that we explain that to our managers, so that they can explain it to their employees."
The Results
Office Depot spent about $75,000 on the community outreach campaign, including a cash gift and in-kind donations to NAAR. The retailer also raised more than $10,000 from
consumers who made donations upon checkout at Office Depot outlets. Office Depot reps say they consider the $10,000 raised a bonus to the primary goal of the campaign, which was
to raise awareness about autism and the work of NAAR.
It is more crucial than the cash, however, for the PR team to look at the intangibles. Wong, for instance, says she got hundreds of e-mails from families nationwide thanking
Office Depot for helping to raise awareness, and Guzzardo agrees that the effort did much to boost the overall visibility of autism and of his organization. "The Office Depot
campaign was very important for us in terms of getting the NAAR name and mission, and just autism in general, out there to the general public in a way that doesn't happen very
often."
Contacts: Joe Guzzardo, 888.777.NAAR, x17, [email protected]; Brian Levine, 561.438.2895, [email protected]; Mary Wong, 561.438.7626, [email protected]