2015 Bronze Anvil Winner Highlight: Girl Scouts Add ‘Byte’ to Iconic Cookie Program
In 2014, Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) launched “Digital Cookie,” a groundbreaking addition to its iconic cookie program, adding a digital layer that teaches girls ecommerce skills. For the first time, the program lets girls market cookies, process payments, and place shipment orders through a national digital platform.
Communicating Digital Cookies posed many challenges, including:
- Telling one consistent story across 112 local markets,
- Addressing council participation in the first year of the initiative
- Ensuring media coverage reflected Digital Cookie as an expansion of the cookie program and not a replacement
- Informing the public that the launch of Digital Cookie was an initial phase of a program that will progress over time
- Communicating a new program that was still in development at the time of planning.
As part of an innovative approach, GSUSA decided to step outside of its traditional communications comfort zone and gamble on having young girls deliver the Digital Cookie story to media.
The approach leveraged the skills of Girl Scouts who, through their excitement and experience, effectively told the Girl Scout story to the world– a first for the organization. GSUSA also executed and enforced a first-time movement-wide media embargo (regardless of major resistance) without a single leak, despite the thousands of people who were aware of the story.
Working with a tight budget, GSUSA furthered the media strategy innovation by deciding to limit outreach to a select handful of top-tier, wide-reaching media rather than going wide with the story. By working closely with this press, GSUSA believed it could better control the story, and drive future coverage based on pickup from these well-informed stories.
Preparation included drafting a national press release, creating talking points for GSUSA leadership, and assembling local press kits for councils. In addition, GSUSA engaged in extensive media training of GSUSA Digital Cookie teams and the girls who would deliver the Digital Cookie message through their own experiences, positioning the initiative as a fun and revolutionary way for girls to learn modern entrepreneurism.
The launch strategy culminated with Girl Scouts showcasing Digital Cookie to the tech world at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) – again, putting the girls in the driver’s seat, leading engagement with both consumers and press at the event.
The embargo lifted at 10 p.m. on November 31, 2014, and GSUSA measured earned media coverage from outlets including The New York Times, USA Today, ABC News, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Fast Company, Mashable, and Entrepreneur.
As of 2015, Digital Cookie had received almost 4 billion unique local and national media impressions. The strategy of allowing girls to tell the Digital Cookie story was hugely successful; nearly 70% of the coverage included messaging around the girl-centric aspect and what girls learn through Digital Cookie.
The coverage GSUSA secured turned Digital Cookie into a pop-culture phenomenon, trending #1 on Facebook and receiving coverage on Saturday Night Live and NYC Taxi Jeopardy. In addition to securing mentions on all morning news shows and virtually all major national publications, Girl Scouts was deemed “Brand of the Day” by ADWEEK, and Fast Company ranked the organization among the World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2015 in Not-for-Profit.
Digital Cookie drove a record 5 million people to GSUSA’s website, and 11 million Girl Scout Cookie–related page views. GSUSA secured additional accolades at CES, where TIME and The New York Times ranked Girl Scouts as the most unlikely yet most important brand on site. The Wall Street Journal deemed Digital Cookie the one item from CES 2015 “that will change our lives or habits forever.”
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