We’ve all heard about brands supporting charitable causes, but post-COVID has seen an increase in the number of causes needing extra support due to the drop in international tourism. Increasingly, I see more and more SMEs in the food industry filling the funding gap left due to Covid. Pairing your brand with a good cause can have a powerful impact for both sides, not only for a pure business and marketing strategy but also for your soul!
Your product can do good just by being purchased. Whether it’s $1 or 5% of your sale, you can assist many people/animals/livelihoods at once.
Someone who does this well is Zeden Cider Co. They decided to team up with Forest & Bird New Zealand, a long-standing eco-warrior NGO protecting our flora and fauna. Each sale of Zeden cider sees 10% of the profit donated to Forest & Bird.
Read on for an insight into the journey Bevan Wait, Owner of Zeden Cider Co., took to align his cider with the perfect cause.
Forest and Bird has been around for nearly 100 years! They are a cornerstone of environmental protection in New Zealand. Much of the amazing work they do, is done by volunteers. They are an organisation that gets results, and they are incredibly efficient with their donations. It was an easy pick. I’ve always been interested in how I could help them with one of my brands.
Forest and Bird have an excellent head office behind all their activities with a lot of people really good at organising things – you need that when you have an army of 80,000 volunteers and members. Forest and Bird have a few corporate sponsors, so they are familiar with companies approaching them. Jo Prestwood is Forest & Bird’s Corporate Relationships manager. She has been our port of call and has been great to deal with – Jo made things very easy for us in the transition by ensuring we had the right messaging and logos to use on our packaging.
Forest and Bird’s core two mantras are ‘Defending Nature’ & ‘Giving Nature A Voice’. To us, these mantras were incredibly appealing. Nature is on the back foot big time at the moment, and now, more than ever, it needs a voice and a helping hand. We felt that Forest & Bird is doing some of the best environmental charity work in New Zealand, and we knew that aligning with them would match well with our kiwi-made cider.
Imagine sipping an ice-cold cider and knowing that, with every sip, you are helping defend and give nature a voice. It would be a good feeling, right? That is what it is like for us and our fans. It’s a win-win for everyone.