Engaging with charitable and purposeful organisations can present a great opportunity for businesses to enhance their brand reputation, while contributing to a meaningful cause.  

However, in order to create genuine partnerships, there must be alignment between a business and the charity or not-for-profit. 

In addition, in a competitive media landscape, how do you establish strong partnerships that gain cut through with your target audience? 

Our recent work with Nestlé Professional, the out-of-home food and beverage services arm, and public health promotion charity, R U OK?, exemplifies how a strong partnership can achieve just that.  

The client brief: Fostering meaningful connections 

R U OK? is a charity on a mission to inspire and empower people to create meaningful connections with their friends, family, and colleagues by asking, “are you okay?” 

Given Nestlé Professional’s legacy of making more possible in out-of-home and bringing Aussie workers together, its coffee brand, Nescafé,  became the ‘official cuppa partner’ of R U OK? to further encourage moments of connection between colleagues. 

IMPACT was entrusted with:

• Announcing and driving awareness of the new three-year partnership

• Encouraging Australian workplaces to take the time to engage in meaningful conversation over a cup of coffee

• Launching the limited-edition Nescafé Blend 43 x R U OK? 1kg tins

The campaign: Nescafé x R U OK? partnership trade launch 

To fulfill this comprehensive campaign, IMPACT implemented a two-phased trade media strategy, starting with initial gifting outreach prior to the announcement and R U OK? Day.  

By providing the product ahead of the media announcement, journalists were empowered to initiate those meaningful conversations in their workplaces and keep the partnership top of mind for launch. 

The second phase consisted of trade announcement outreach to HR, retail marketing, and food service industry media targets.  

R U OK? research conducted in the month prior to launch provided real-time insights into how often Australians open up to colleagues. This provided strong credibility and depth to the media release.  

The outcomes: Promoting purposeful partnerships 

Through strategic pre-announcement product gifting and focused media outreach, IMPACT successfully created a campaign that achieved strong cut through with key trade audiences. 

The distribution of product prior to the media release proved pivotal, with a remarkable 92 per cent of journalists who were gifted the limited-edition tins, covering the announcement. The flow-on effect of this approach significantly contributed to media pick-up. 

Quality coverage across trade titles celebrated the collaboration, with 100 per cent of media clips featuring more than three key messages, and the ‘official cuppa’ partnership announcement prominent throughout.