A Brilliant Plan: Give, Give Back, and Tweet to Win

The holiday season is in full swing and businesses everywhere are looking to boost their end-of-year sales by offering all kinds of discounts and special offers. While many are ruthless in their attempts to gain customers (starting with 4AM Black Friday sales and countless items on clearance), others take a more inventive and even altruistic approach. After all, 'tis the season of giving. So, why shouldn't the companies taking our money also give a little, too?

Glamour Gone Good has had the good fortune of developing a wonderful relationship with Spa Week, a lifestyle brand delivering a robust spa directory, hundreds of spa deals and spa discounts, news and more all year-round.

What makes Spa Week so successful is its approach to marketing, which allows it to develop one-on-one relationships with its target audience. With a powerful online presence, it has successfully harnessed the power of social media to transform its audience into individual ambassadors of the Spa Week brand. And, now, it’s even discovered a way to integrate charitable giving into its online marketing strategy, further engaging its loyal consumer base while also attracting new consumers.

Below is an abridged version of Spa Week’s current holiday promotion, Give, Give Back, and Tweet to WIN!

Take a look at the three-step process it has developed for the campaign, which is ultimately meant to encourage SPA gift card sales.

GIVE: With the mission of spreading health, beauty and wellness lifestyle to the next generation, Spa Week’s Holiday Gift Card Sale offers $100 SPA Gift Cards for just $79.99. All other denominations are 20% off – you won’t find this deal anywhere else! SPA Cards are redeemable 52 weeks a year at thousands of day spas, medical spas, salons and wellness centers nationwide for massages, facials, scrubs, pedicures, acupuncture and more, and they never expire.

GIVE BACK: For every new @SPAWEEK Twitter follower we get from now until the end of 2010, Spa Week will donate 10 cents to Glamour Gone Good. Right now we’re at: 8,799.

We chose this organization because we absolutely love their concept, as well as the 3 women’s causes they support. GGG encourages beauty, fashion, salon and spa businesses to integrate charity into their everyday business by giving them fun and easy ways to give back to women in need, even if they don’t have much to give.

WIN: Follow @SPAWEEK and @GlamourGoneGood on Twitter.

TWEET: SPA-liday Gift Card Sale from @SPAWEEK! Follow them to #GiveBack to women in need, and Tweet to Win a $100 SPA Gift Card. http://ow.ly/3gSns

Every Tweet will count as one entry to win a $100 SPA Gift Card from SpaWeek, redeemable all year around for massages, facials and so much more. Contest Ends December 31st at 11:59 EST. Winner drawn and announced on this blog post on January 3rd.

This Spa Week campaign is a huge hit for the following reasons:

1. It offers a substantial discount on its holiday gift cards.
2. It has developed a catchy Twitter campaign to promote its gift cards.
3. It has integrated a brand-appropriate charity into its Twitter campaign, allowing its audience to engage in charitable giving activities while learning about Spa Week’s gift card promotion.
4. It is offering a free giveaway to further entice its audience to participate in its Twitter campaign, which both raises funds for charity and promotes its holiday gift card sale.

Key take-aways for other brands?

1. DEALS: Customers want more than just sales and discounts (but they always want those, too!).
2. DONATE: Tie a suitable charitable partner into your promotion. Customers want to feel good about their purchase and this is an easy way to give them that sense of satisfaction.
3. FREE GIVEAWAYS: Offer the chance to win something valuable (pick an item to which you want to draw extra attention) and find the appropriate platform from which to promote your contest or sweepstakes.

You Shop, They Donate

With the holidays around the corner, we’re seeing all kinds of incentives being marketed to shoppers these days, from coupons to free shipping offers to sales promotions of all shapes and sizes.

There’s no doubt that consumers want to stretch their dollars as far as possible this year, so these promotions go a long way. However, these aren’t the only ways for businesses to boost their sales this holiday season.

A great trend emerging in the consumer world is driven by cause marketing. More and more companies are realizing that consumers are interested in more than discounts and free gifts. They want the dollars coming out of their pockets to multi-task. What do I mean by this? More and more consumers want to spend money on products that give back to charity. (For more on this topic, read one of our previous posts, Do You ‘Shop For A Cause’?) Companies are listening. Here in the U.S., you see this most commonly during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October and around the end-of-year holiday season.

It’s a brilliant strategy to adopt because everyone ends up a winner. Consumers get excited by the fact that their money is not only going towards their purchases, but also towards meaningful causes. Meanwhile, brands see a boost in sales (assuming they market their promotions effectively) and get the chance to take advantage of these charity-driven promotions to garner new press opportunities. And, of course, the charities that benefit from these percent-of-proceeds promotions end up raising funds without having to do much on their end beyond spreading the word.

With all of this in mind, I was inspired to launch a virtual shop that features products and brands offering a percent of proceeds from all purchases made in their online shops shops to Glamour Gone Good. The brands currently participating in the Glamour Gone Good virtual shop are:

• CLOTH
• Good For Your Girls
• SalonSpa.com
• Stop Traffick Fashion
• The Glamour Band

Stop by the Glamour Gone Good shop and maybe you’ll find the perfect gift for a loved one or a little treat for yourself. If you’re interested in contributing to the shop, it’s not too late to contact us. Or, simply help us spread the word.

Perhaps this blog post and our own shop will inspire you to develop a percent-of-proceeds promotion of your own to support causes near and dear to the hearts of your consumers. If you want some help, email us at info@glamourgonegood.org.

Latest Trends In Corporate Charitable Giving

October 1st kicked off Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a hugely popular time of year for companies to embrace the beauty of charitable giving. Everyone from the NFL to Hershey’s to Bloomingdale’s has gone pink for the month and is donating large sums of cash to breast cancer organizations.

Unfortunately for me, there are so many companies involved in breast cancer awareness that I could not decide which ones to highlight for you. So, instead, I’ve decided to explore with you the latest trends in corporate charitable giving.

October is a great month to talk about corporate giving since it’s a month saturated with charitable messaging thanks to the permeation of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in American society. You can’t argue with the fact that pink ribbons have become the October equivalent of red ribbons and bright lights around the holidays. But, how has corporate giving evolved since Breast Cancer Awareness Month emerged and corporations began slapping pink ribbons on products? Has the recipe for corporate giving truly changed over time? Or just the packaging?

You be the judge.

Generally speaking, most companies engaging in charitable giving programs usually do so in one of the following ways:
1. No-frills cash or product donations to charity
2. Employee giving matching programs
3. Event sponsorships
4. One-dollar donation for pin-up programs (usually at grocery stores)
5. Percent-of-proceeds promotions tied to specific products (especially popular during Breast Cancer Awareness Month)
6. Some combination of any or all of the above

We still continue to see all of these forms of corporate giving, but new trends are emerging, a few of which I find particularly fascinating. Thanks to some friendly folks at Benevity, I’m going to share with you some of the latest and greatest options available to companies of all shapes and sizes that are interested in charitable giving.

Online micro-donations: Companies can integrate special software into their e-commerce engines to allow customers to make donations to the charities of their choice while making online purchases. In some cases, companies will match what their customers contribute dollar-for-dollar.

Text-to-give: Companies can partner with not-for-profits to set up mobile texting programs that allow customers to text unique keywords from their cell phones to shot numeric codes, making quick and easy donations to charity from their mobile devices.

Charitable gift cards: Companies can purchase gift cards for employees and/or customers (as thank you gifts or a show of appreciation) that have specific cash values. The recipients of these gift cards can donate the cash value of their gift cards to the charities of their choice.

Add to these strategies another new trend in corporate charitable giving: Crowd-sourced corporate giving. (Think Chase Community Giving and Pepsi Refresh for the two most relevant examples of this.) Companies decide in advance how much total cash they plan to distribute to charity and create online portals through which charities and community leaders can promote their projects. Consumers are given specific time frames during which they can vote online for their favorite charities or community projects to win cash grants. The winners of these crowd-sourced online contests win both free publicity and cash for their organizations or proposed projects.

So, what do you think? Is corporate giving as we’ve known it transforming thanks to the wonders of technology? Or will traditional charitable giving strategies continue to rule despite these new advances?

Skin Care Brands Gone Good: The Results

A couple weeks ago, Glamour Gone Good issued a survey called Skin Care Brands Gone Good. The survey focused on three socially responsible campaigns launched by three different skin care brands: Dove, Clean & Clear, and philosophy. Below are our findings and some additional thoughts.

Background information on survey takers:

• 100% of respondents were female
• 75% of respondents are between ages 25 to 34
• 25% of respondents are between ages 35 to 49
• 100% of respondents use skin care products on a daily basis

THE RESULTS:

Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty was the overwhelmingly popular choice amongst all survey respondents with 100% of respondents saying they would support the campaign, if they are not already doing so.

Conversely, Clean & Clear's Join the Surge program seemed to have the least impact on survey takers. While 100% of survey takers felt either somewhat or highly motivated to support Dove's and philosophy’s campaigns, none of them felt the same way about Join the Surge.

There are a few possible reasons for this. First of all, the Join the Surge campaign is targeted at teens. Given that 100% of respondents were ages 25 or above, they were clearly not the target audience for the campaign. So, it’s not a huge surprise that they did not respond as excitedly to this program as they did to Dove's and philosophy’s socially responsible campaigns.

In addition, as the survey results would indicate, our respondents were most interested in campaigns that had the strongest relationship with the charities involved in their campaigns. Along those lines, the overwhelming majority of respondents felt that philosophy’s shop for a cause campaign is most successfully supporting its charities (it clearly communicates to its consumers which charity each "shop for a cause" product benefits and it donates 100% of net proceeds to that charity.) Meanwhile, neither Dove nor Clean & Clear clearly communicates to the consumer its strategy for supporting its charity partner(s). An important question left lingering in our minds is what kind of financial contribution either brand is making to its charity partner(s), if any.

Most importantly, 100% of survey takers responded that they prefer brands that invest in multi-year, multimedia campaigns. So, it’s no surprise that Join the Surge did not excite respondents since the campaign lasted only three months while both Dove's and philosophy's campaigns have been going on for at least a few years.

Why does any of this matter?

This survey and its results were an interesting experiment that reinforced some important lessons for brands engaging in socially responsible and charitable activities. They are as follows:

1. Consumers want specifics. They want to know exactly how brands are supporting the charities around which they develop their campaigns. Slapping a logo on promotional materials with a vague ‘We Are A Proud Supporter Of’ message is no longer relevant for today’s sophisticated, savvy consumer.

2. Consumers want a long-term commitment. Heavily promoting a campaign that will only last a week or a month will not have as great an impact on a brand’s consumer base as a campaign that lasts all year or is repeated annually. People are forgetful, so it's critical to develop a campaign that is sure to leave a lasting impression. If a brand really wants to woo its consumers, it must think of its charitable campaigns as long-term relationships, not quick flings that are here today and gone tomorrow.

3. Consumers want brands to care about what they care about. All too often, brands align themselves with causes or issues of special significance to their CEOs and founders. Unfortunately, those issues or causes may not always resonate with their consumers. Meanwhile, brands that listen to their consumers and develop campaigns that truly speak to them are in a better position to increase consumer brand loyalty and boost sales of products and services tied to those campaigns. While not all brands have the resources to conduct formal market research and talk to focus groups, they can all reach out to their most loyal consumers, survey them and, most importantly, engage them in meaningful dialogue to find out exactly what moves them.

What other important lessons can we learn from our consumers when it comes to developing meaningful and successful socially responsible campaigns?

Skin Care Brands Gone Good

If you’ve read any of my previous blog entries, you’ll know that both I and my company, Glamour Gone Good, are huge advocates of socially conscious companies that leverage their brands to do good.

Lots of companies are doing good these days, which is great! But, what’s the method to their madness? And does it work for you? Since we usually only find out about these campaigns once they’ve launched, we really have no good way of finding out how and why these socially responsible campaigns targeted at us come about. However, we can certainly form our own opinions as to how successful these socially responsible campaigns end up being in motivating us to take appropriate action. So, I thought it would be fun to do some research of my own…and to include you in it!

Below you will find brief descriptions of three well-known skin care brands and their corresponding socially responsible campaigns. Read through them and let the information sink in. There’s a brief survey for you at the end.



Dove Campaign for Real Beauty
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty launched in 2004 as a global effort to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition and discussion of beauty. According to Dove, the campaign supports the brand’s mission “to make more women feel beautiful every day by widening stereotypical views of beauty.”

Dove created the Dove Self-Esteem Fund in 2006 as the charitable component of this global campaign to help build self-confidence in girls ages 8 to 17 with after-school programs, self-esteem building events, and educational resources. Dove’s goal is to have reached 5 million girls through the Dove Self-Esteem Fund by the close of 2010. The three charities supported by the Fund are Girls Scouts USA, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Girls, Inc.

According to Dove’s marketing campaign, any Dove purchase supports self-esteem programs for girls. (It’s unclear, however, what percent of proceeds benefit the Dove Self-Esteem Fund and whether any funds are distributed by Dove to its three charity partners.) All marketing of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund is directly tied to the larger “Campaign for Real Beauty” advertising and marketing campaign.

Clean & Clear: Join the Surge!
On June 15, 2010, CLEAN & CLEAR® Skincare, teen celebrity Demi Lovato, and national non-profit organization DoSomething.org joined forces to energize, celebrate, and empower teens to get involved in causes that are important to them. The "Join The Surge" program gives teens the tools that they need to start a movement and affect change and the opportunity to be a part of a community where they will receive support, tips and share experiences. With the support of DoSomething.org, program participants can be matched up with volunteer opportunities based on individual interests and location. In addition, teens who commit to "Join the Surge" receive exclusive discounts off their favorite skincare products.

"Join the Surge" is largely a viral marketing campaign targeted at teens that aims to grow the DoSomething.org volunteer community from 800,000 teens to 1.2 million by the program's completion in September.

philosophy: shop for a cause
The philosophy brand promises “to bring its customers products that inspire them to live a better life by being better to themselves.”

philosophy has a dedicated ‘shop for a cause’ category of products on its website. These products are also available at retail locations where philosophy products are sold. 100% of net proceeds from these products benefit the charities listed directly on the product packaging and in the online product descriptions. The charities supported by these products vary considerably. Some of the causes supported include the Women’s Cancer Research Fund, the Joyful Heart Foundation, the Bob Woodruff Foundation, and PBS. These products are available year-round and are not typically marketed any differently than any of philosophy’s other products that do not support charity.

Now that you’ve had a chance to read through the brief descriptions of three different socially responsible campaigns launched by three different skin care brands, you’re ready to take our brief survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HF8L3PP

We’ll evaluate the responses to the survey in our next blog post. Hopefully, we'll gain some insights on the impact and effectiveness of three different socially conscious campaigns going on within the skin care industry. Thanks for helping out!

We All Love Gifts Regardless of the Size or Shape of the Box

These days, you don’t have to look too far to see companies you love giving back to the community in their own ways. Hair salon chains are no exception.

Have you heard of something called Hair Cuttery? Chances are you have, given that they have over 800 locations all over the United States. My own neighborhood has seven Hair Cuttery
locations within a 10 mile radius.

So, what makes Hair Cuttery so great? Just a few days ago, the company ended its 11th annual ‘Share a Haircut’ program. Take a look at what they had to say about it:

“We know a new haircut on the first day of school can help a child feel more confident and can make a big difference to start the next academic year,” said Dennis Ratner, founder and CEO of Hair Cuttery. “In these troubled economic times, we all need to do whatever we can to help those in need.”

From August 1-15, for every youngster (up to 18) who comes into any Hair Cuttery and gets a haircut, the company will donate a free haircut to a needy child in that community. Since beginning the Share a Haircut program, Hair Cuttery has donated over 500,000 free haircuts nation-wide! This year we're shooting for 60,000-that's a lot of haircuts!

Clearly, the program works. Otherwise, it wouldn’t continue to see the light of day. It’s simple to understand and even simpler to execute. And, did you notice that there’s no mention of cash anywhere? Hair Cuttery has successfully found a way to leverage its assets – the 800+ salon locations and accompanying hair stylists – to make an impact on a grassroots level in the lives of children with limited resources by offering them free haircuts every summer just before the school year begins.

So, they’re not saving lives or giving away millions of dollars to charity. Does that make the program any less successful? Nope. Brilliant, ain’t it?

And, the best part? You can do it, too.

Some key lessons we all can take away from the Hair Cuttery and its ‘Share a Haircut’ program include:

1. Developing a promotion anchored in charity can have all kinds of positive ripple effects like increased consumer brand loyalty, increased employee job satisfaction, and great marketing and PR results. The key is to strategize with your team on what kind of promotion makes most sense for your brand. Think about what kind of cause you wish to support and what level of results you hope to achieve. Those critical decisions will help you determine the call-to-action of your campaign, when and for what duration of time you should execute it, how you want to market it, and who will need to get involved to help make it happen.

2. Giving comes in multiple forms. Making an impact in your community doesn’t need to require boatloads of cash or even commitment to a single charity. Other ways to give back include donation of products and/or services and, of course, staff time. Figure out which of those forms of giving makes most sense for you and develop your campaign around that.

3. A small gift can go a long way. Lots of companies, especially smaller ones, have gotten the impression that you need tremendous resources to pull off a charitable campaign worth its salt. That’s not true. In a nutshell, the Hair Cuttery gives free hair cuts to kids for two weeks a year. The impact of the program is so large because it has 800+ salons to carry out the campaign. That ends up being a LOT of free haircuts! So, think about what kind of impact you’re looking to make: A huge one in a few people’s lives or a small one in a huge number of people’s lives? There’s really no right or wrong answer here. It all depends on what you can and want to do. Either way, a gift is a gift and someone’s going to appreciate it!

What else can we take away from this program? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

For more information about Hair Cuttery’s Share a Haircut program, visit: http://www.haircuttery.com/home/about-us/causes.dot

Do You 'Shop for a Cause'?

Beauty brands are becoming more increasingly aware that in order to stay competitive in the American market, they need to support charity in one way or another.

Why? Good question. More and more consumer market research is coming out each year with the same overall message: Americans want to support companies that pay equal attention to both society and business needs.

Take a look at some of the latest numbers (according to Edelman’s 2009 goodpurpose study):

• 71% of consumers think brands/companies spend too much on advertising/marketing and should put more money into good causes.
• 67% think its no longer enough for corporations to simply give away money to a good cause; they need to integrate good causes into their day-to-day business.
• 64% would recommend a brand that supports a good cause.
• 63% want brands to make it easier for them to make a positive difference in the world.
• 58% are looking for brands to do more than just provide them a product or service.

Based on these numbers, it seems pretty evident that we now live in a world where the pendulum swings in favor of companies that put more weight on being socially conscious and responsible corporate citizens than their competitors.

Think about yourself for a moment. Do the numbers above reflect your own personal values as a consumer? Are you more likely to support a brand that is visibly aligned with a cause over its competitor, price and quality of both products being equal?

Here's how some of our favorite beauty brands are responding to this cultural phenomenon:

M.A.C. launched the M.A.C. AIDS Fund to provide grants to programs that serve people affected by HIV and AIDS. 100% of net proceeds from M.A.C.’s ‘VIVA GLAM’ lipsticks benefit the fund.

Sephora launched ‘The Sephora Project’ to educate and empower women who help make the world a more beautiful place. A percent of proceeds from select products benefit Sephora’s preferred charities.

philosophy has a dedicated ‘shop for a cause’ category of products. 100% of net proceeds from these products benefit the charities listed directly on the product packaging.

Of course, some brands do a better job than others at communicating why they choose to support certain causes or charities. There will always be those that give away much more money to charity each year than others. Some will have consistent campaigns over the years while others will switch it up as they see fit. But, at the end of the day, they are all giving back because they know its what their consumers want to see. It's becoming increasingly rare to find a beauty brand these days that does not support charity in one form or another. For those brands still out there that managed to miss the memo - it's time to wake up! (And, consider giving Glamour Gone Good a ring.)

To learn about other beauty brands doing great stuff to give back, check out some of our previous blog posts. And, feel free to share examples of other favorites of yours by leaving a comment.

The Body Shop Says NO to Sex Trafficking

For years, we've known The Body Shop to be a fabulous cosmetics company with over 2,500 locations around the world that sells us products using ingredients found in Mother Nature to enhance our "natural beauty."

But, did you know that when it comes to being a socially conscious and socially responsible company, The Body Shop goes above and beyond the obvious decision to celebrate and preserve our planet? In 2008, The Body Shop launched the "Stop Violence in the Home" campaign to raise awareness and funds for women across the world affected by domestic violence. The campaign has raised over $4 million to date. Pretty impressive.

The buck doesn't stop there for The Body Shop. While the company already has a few successful social responsibility campaigns under its belt, it's decided to take on an issue that not too many companies would be eager to touch. SEX TRAFFICKING.

On Monday, August 2nd, The Body Shop initiated a campaign to put an end to sex trafficking of children and young people. If you visit the company's website, this message will all but literally jump off the page at you. You'll be prompted to sign a petition that The Body Shop has launched to encourage the US to change the laws that allow children to be arrested and prosecuted when they are the victims of sex trafficking and, instead, replace those laws with "safe harbor" law. In less than a week, this petition has garnered over 10,000 signatures. Check it out here.

I have yet to walk into a Body Shop location to see how the campaign translates in the store, but I must admit that I am very impressed with the firm stance that The Body Shop has taken on such a sensitive issue. It's not every day that you see a cosmetics company openly lobbying for social change. It's an amazing precedent to set, especially during a time when much of the cosmetics industry is combating the Safe Cosmetics Act currently being proposed by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and its allies.

So, what do you think of The Body Shop's campaign to stop sex trafficking? Does it make sense for the brand? Will it be successful? What else can the company do beyond the petition to deepen the impact of the campaign?

How L’Oreal Recruits Brand Ambassadors While Doing Social Good

Every year, L’Oreal recognizes a new set of ‘Women of Worth’ and awards their charities $5,000 each, with an additional $5,000 donation made in each of their names to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. One of these women is selected as the National Woman of Worth Honoree and her charity receives a whopping $25,000! As you can imagine, L’Oreal also showers these women and their charities with lots of media attention and hosts a large gala event in their honor at the end of each year.

In L’Oreal’s own words:

More than 30 years ago, L'Oréal coined the phrase "Because I'm Worth It" to celebrate a woman's worth and build her self-esteem. In 1997, as an extension of this sentiment, L'Oréal Paris proudly partnered with The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF) to raise money and awareness in the fight against ovarian cancer.

In 2006 our signature phrase and OCRF partnership came to life in a new way. L'Oréal established Women Of Worth - a grassroots program and award that honors women who serve others in their communities.

Who is a Woman Of Worth? She's an inspiring volunteer, an outstanding achiever, and a beautiful person who's making a difference in her community. She sees a need around her and doesn’t hesitate to get involved. Whether she's empowering women, mentoring children, helping survivors to heal or motivating troops overseas, her efforts are tireless. Her spirit is unbreakable.

From a socially responsible perspective, L’Oreal is doing a great job by supporting amazing female change-makers and their charities. There’s no doubt that a program like this makes L’Oreal look and feel good, as it should. But, the ‘good’ stuff doesn’t just stop there. By putting the spotlight on these remarkable women of worth, L’Oreal is building an army of brand ambassadors.

Imagine this:

At the age of 15, you were the victim of acquaintance rape. It took you four years to build the courage to speak up about what happened to you. Right before your eyes, the website you built to tell your story has evolved into an organization that boasts of being the largest international online sexual abuse survivor community, serving more than 20,000 survivors worldwide. (Learn more about 2009 National Woman of Worth Honoree, Shannon Lambert here)

Naturally, you feel blessed to have the opportunity to help thousands of women around the world heal, but now you’ve also been recognized for your work by a very prominent beauty brand whose core consumers are women like you. Once you complete your interviews, attend the big awards gala, and accept the $25,000 check on behalf of your charity, will your relationship with that company end there?

Not a chance.

You’ve just been transformed into a brand ambassador of that company for life. All of the women in your network will be reading that press release announcing your name as the recipient of this prestigious award. And, because of the impact you and your organization have had on all of these women, they will have newfound appreciation for the company that honored you.

What does this mean for L’Oreal? Chances are that the next time a member of a Woman of Worth’s organization is watching a L’Oreal ad on TV or sees one in her favorite women's magazine, she’ll probably smile without noticing and pay closer attention than before, store the name of that new product in her memory, and possibly pick it up the next time she's at the drugstore. Maybe she'll even recommend it to friends. Moreover, L'Oreal will have boosted its chances of becoming her beauty brand of choice, if it wasn't already. Why? Because she believes that L'Oreal is a socially responsible company that truly values women. After all, it honored one of her favorite women and made a donation to a charity she holds very close to her heart. All in all, the brand just evokes a feeling of goodness in her, so when given a choice between L'Oreal beauty products and those of its competitors, why in the world would she buy anything else?

Take a look at the list of 2009 ‘Women of Worth.’ These are impressive women who have each made a very profound impact in their communities. If there’s anyone a beauty brand like L’Oreal would want as an ‘everyday’ brand ambassador...it’s definitely one of these power house women. Smart thinking, right?

P.S. You don’t need to be a multimillion dollar enterprise to build an effective base of brand ambassadors. Look to companies like L’Oreal for inspiration and, you too, can build socially responsible programs that also serve as breeding grounds for brand ambassadors. Other companies doing this successfully are Pepsi with the Pepsi Refresh project and Bank of America with the Neighborhood Excellence Initiative. If you know other terrific examples, please share them with us!