Developing a coffee brand for a good cause
“End Polio Now” is a global campaign launched by Rotary International with the aim of eradicating poliomyelitis worldwide. The campaign has two main goals: to raise essential funds and to increase public awareness of this long-standing project. The mission was initiated in the late 1970s and was so ambitious that even the World Health Organization initially doubted its success. We are proud to have contributed to this cause with our creative idea.
Effective advertising is empathetic and goal-oriented, and it resonates. One key tool for achieving this is the use of “memory anchors”, a sub-discipline of storytelling. We used these methods to develop a regional fundraising campaign for the largest public health project in history: the fight against polio.
As is often the case in communication, the decisive step was to pause at the start of the project and ask a few fundamental questions: Who is the target audience for my advertising? What is my core communication objective?
So, what exactly did I want to achieve—and with whom?
Our primary target group consisted of the Rotarians in Southwest Germany, specifically Rotary District 1930. This represents approximately 3,500 individuals across the region between Bruchsal, Lörrach, Lindau, Ulm, and Rottweil. Beyond this, we identified a secondary audience: the personal and professional networks of these members—including family, friends, and colleagues.
The communication goal was to reassure the primary audience that their decades-long commitment remains vital and that staying the course is essential. Each year, the clubs and their members contribute financially to this global initiative. Naturally, after such a long period, a certain “donor fatigue” can set in. Our task was to counter this.
To do so, we filtered the vast amount of available information down to the most relevant facts. We identified the actual annual cost per member as the central piece of communication. Our aim was to put this amount into perspective, following the logic: “In reality, it’s not that much.”
This led us to develop a “memory anchor” designed to be shared and retold. The line of argument, which Jan Mittelstaedt—then Rotary Governor of the district—presented during his club visits, was as follows.
Lately, wonderful coffee shops have been popping up in cities everywhere. Places where you can sit back and enjoy very special coffee creations. Take the Espresso Perfetto Nuovo, for example — a creation that we completely made up. This drink symbolises all the small luxuries we treat ourselves to in sidewalk cafés today. But what does this have to do with END POLIO NOW? Let’s find out.
- Rotary asks every club to contribute 1,500 dollars annually to END POLIO NOW.
- With approximately 1,150 Rotary Clubs in Germany, that totals 1,725,000 dollars.
- Our German clubs have nearly 59,000 members. This breaks down to about 29 dollars per member per year, or 2 dollars and 44 cents per month.
- In euros, that’s almost exactly: 2.
So, the next time you walk past a café with a chalkboard listing the specials, please think of the ESPRESSO PERFETTO NUOVO—the EPN coffee. Remember that, on average, it costs us Rotarians just one of these coffees per month to keep our greatest project running. If you enjoyed the story of the Espresso Perfetto Nuovo, you can now drink from cups designed exclusively for this fictional brand. A cup and saucer set costs 16 euros. Around 10 euros from every sale goes directly to End Polio Now, which is then tripled by the Gates Foundation. It’s a great deal: you pay 16 euros, Polio Plus receives 30 euros—enough for around 60 vaccinations—and you get to keep a beautiful porcelain cup. By the way: the cup also makes an excellent gift for clients, employees, or guest speakers.
