Malt-O-Meal sets a high bar for social media and social responsibility
It’s pretty clear that social media is becoming an accepted method for raising money and support for cause-related organizations. Sara Lee is doing it today with their National Sandwich Day promotion that uses Facebook and Twitter to raise money for Share Our Strength.
Target did it for their Do Something 101 promotion that used Facebook to support an effort by dosomething.org to collect donations of school supplies.
Then yesterday I came across a company - not one of the usual suspects either - that is using the current tools of connection and participation as effectively as anyone to build their brand as well as to give back to their community. Malt-O-Meal, a lower priced alternative to the mega cereal brands, has hammered a stake into the web-o-sphere with an online presence that includes two blogs, a community called Cereal Central, a permission building incentive to join the community (winning recipes from the annual Malt-O-Meal State Fair Recipe Contest), a second community through recycling partner TerraCycle, a Twitter account, and a YouTube channel. They even have video interviews of some State Fair Recipe winners. (Too bad they aren’t easily shareable - my only real criticism.)
On top of all of that, they have a cause-related effort called Million Bowls to benefit hunger relief in North Carolina.
From their press release:
The company announced today at a grand opening ceremony that Malt-O-Meal is moving quickly to help urgent demand at North Carolina food banks by donating the first one million bowls. North Carolinians are now being challenged to step up to the bowl and match Malt-O-Meal’s donation by purchasing any variety of Malt-O-Meal cereal and registering their purchases online at www.MillionBowls.com to reach a donation goal of a second million servings of Malt-O-Meal cereals.
For every registered consumer purchase through the end of 2009, Malt-O-Meal will donate ten servings of cereal to North Carolina food banks.
Consumers are invited to track daily progress toward the goal of 2,000,000 servings at www.MillionBowls.com, at www.facebook.com/MaltOMeal and at www.twitter.com/MaltOMealCereal.
There’s a lesson here. What I like most about this effort by Malt-O-Meal is…well…the effort. This is not a one-toe-in-the-water-let’s-see-what-the-temperature-is-because-we-don’t-want-to-look-silly-if-it’s-cold kind of affair. They are all in. They have given participation and interaction and conversation a 100% effort - thereby giving themselves a way to judge its value to their brand.
Looks great. Functions like you expect it to. Seems to be gaining some traction. All while building on a brand story about feeding families. Malt-O-Meal looks like a case study in the making.
Written by: Bruce Kaechele
Email the author: brucek@fathom.net
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