Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana
Plansbook Created for Client
Strategy: Mimi DeGaetano
Creative: Parker Simonitis
Media Planner: Donya Salah
Overview
Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana has a positioning problem. After examining GSGCNW’s current position, goals, and programs, we have determined that there needs to be a greater effort in communicating the amazing experiences that Girl Scout’s has to offer. We conducted a survey with over 700 respondents and found a common theme: Empowerment. The target donor base not only wants to see that Girl Scouts programs are empowering girls, but that they are doing so successfully. We want your donors to know exactly how their donations are empowering girls.
Competitive Overview
Step Up (National Organization) - Step Up propels girls living in or going to school in under-resourced communities to fulfill their potential by empowering them to become confident, college-bound, career-focused, and ready to join the next generation of professional women.
- Audience: Girls ages 13-18 in underserved neighborhoods
- Programs: After-school, Mentorship, Guest Speakers/Panels
- Revenue (2016): $3,226,880
- Notable Partners: Benefit Cosmetics, AT&T, Allstate
Girls Who Code (National Organization) - Close the gender gap in technology.
- Audience: Girls everywhere ages 10-18 (30,000+ total)
- Programs: After-school code/CS clubs, 7 week summer immersion
- Revenue (2016): $8,463,929
- Notable Partners: Adobe, Microsoft, General Motors
Girls Inc (National Organization) - Girls Inc. inspires all girls to be strong, smart, and bold through direct service and advocacy.
- Audience: All girls ages 6-18 (51,148 current)
- Programs: Economic Literacy, Drug/Pregnancy Prevention, Media Analysis, STEM
- Revenue (2016): $9,525,931
- Notable Partners: Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, ESPN Inc., Oprah Winfrey Foundation
Girls in the Game (Chicago Organization) - At girls n the game every girl finds her voice, discovers her strength and leads with confidence through fun and active sports, health, and leadership programs.
- Audience: All girls in area ages 7-18 (3,827 in 2016)
- Programs: After-school clubs, Sport game days (Instruction/Activity), Health clinics
- Revenue (2016): $1,325,456
- Notable Partners: United Airlines, Fossil Group, Pepsico
Girls on the Run (National Organization) - We inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.
- Audience: All girls ages 8-13 (193,000 in 2016)
- Programs: Personal life lessons, Physical conditioning, 5Ks
- Revenue (2016): $4,981,932
- Notable Partners: Athleta, FOX Sports, American Express
Girls Rock! (Chicago Organization) - Building a social just community with girls, transgender youth, and gender non-confirming youth by developing leadership, fostering self-esteem, and encouraging creative expression through music.
- Audience: Girls, Transgender, Non-gender conforming youth ages 8-16 (≈400 in 2014)
- Programs: Band summer camps, Instructional workshops
- Revenue (2014): $83,636
- Notable Partners: None
Donor Trends
People and or corporations donate to Girl Scouts because they believe in the mission, and they like to see that there are programs that make a difference in the lives of the scouts and others around them. Emotional appeal is attractive in this case. People also want to be involved in the community and to see young girls educated, empowered, and engaged.
Trend Amongst Women in the Workforce
Women often perceive themselves as not smart enough or have a low self-assessment of their own abilities. Women simply accept the images and perceptions that men have about women’s abilities. In the year 2000, there were only three female CEOs in Fortune 500 firms compared with fifteen in the year 2009. This represents an increase from 0.6% to 3% of the total CEOs in Fortune 500 firms (Women in Leadership, 2015). The Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010) estimated the percentage of women in the labor force is over 51%. However, it should be noted that women are not represented in 51 percent of the top leadership positions (Women in Leadership, 2015).
SWOT Analysis
Strengths: Girl Scouts is credible and had been around for a long time. It is globally recognized, diverse, and provides leadership opportunities for girls across the country.
Weaknesses: The brand image is lacking relevance. Girl Scouts is not retaining regular donors and girls are losing interest after elementary school. After a certain age, Girl Scouts does not appeal to girls anymore.
Opportunities: GSGCNWI has an opportunity to steepen retention rates in both membership and donations. Increasing online presence will help with this, as well as updating the website.
Threats: There are many other newer youth organizations in and around Chicago that are praised for their modern, innovative programs. Also, there is always the threat of lack of local funding.
Survey Questions and Results
Open Comment Responses
Survey Analysis
After conducting our survey of over 600 applicants, we have determined the target audience to be Women age 35-50 with a household income of $120,000+. They are a parent with a daughter, college educated, and donates between $100-$500 a year to organizations.
The largest reason for donating in our survey was that the donor wanted to make a difference, which can be tied back to our main goal which is to show empowerment in Girl Scouts. If the donor can see that their donation is being used to empower girls, help teach STEAM skills, and pave the way for a brighter future, they will feel more willing to donate.
Our respondent are very familiar with Girl Scouts, however 64.25% are not interested in reviewing news from Girl Scouts. We plan to change this drastically, as a revamped online presence will gain the attention of our target and spark interest in the organization.
Using DePaul University analytics software, we targeted keywords associated with Girl Scouts in our survey. 64% of people associate Girl Scouts with the world ‘leadership.’ This shows that the brand already has a good public perception. However, 62% knew about Girl Scouts mainly through cookies sales. This further proves that Girl Scouts does not have an awareness problem, but rather a public perception problem. Girl Scouts seems outdated in the public eye, and is dominated by the cookies and crafts image, when in fact it is so much more.
Creative Brief
Problem:
Girl scouts has a low donor base due to their public perception of not empowering women. There is little public communication of their current progressive programs to garner new donors and keep current ones.
Target Audience:
- Women 35-50
- Household income $120,000 +
- College Educated
- Parent with a daughter
- Donates $100-$500 per year
- Regular users of social media
- Live in suburban/urban areas.
- Socially aware
- Involved in her child’s life (PTA, soccer mom, etc)
Consumer Insights:
If people knew that girl scouts has successfully integrated new STEAM-based programs that empower young women in underserved communities, they would donate to the organization.
Communication Objectives:
Increase total number of individual donors by 20%
Proposition/Selling Idea:
Girl Scouts empowers young women by providing them with the necessary programs to lead a successful life.
Support:
Girl Space Program
- STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) - want to ensure girls receive an education in STEAM early on in their school careers
- Financial Literacy - budgeting for their needs and wants, learn about philanthropy and how they can make an impact through giving, tracking spending habits, and teaching how to differentiate between spending, saving, and giving
- Healthy Living (how to identifying bullying behaviors and develop healthy communication skills, techniques on how to overcome stress, develop skills to create healthy meals with fruits and vegetables)
Brand Imperatives:
- Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana
- Logo
- Website
- Facebook - link
- Strong, empowering, mature
- Include STEAM in some aspect
- Call to Action
- Link to Donate
- Shareable
- Interactive
Creative Direction:
Empathetic emotional appeal, showing results of the positive impact of Girl Scouts, highlight the steam activities, wow-factor
“The use of empathetic, feminine copy, quality creatives [imagery that relates to her], incorporate either reviews and/or a community component to increase trust, and ensure that the shopping cart experience is seamless [Aho, Lee]”.
Creates an emotional, friendly, family oriented connection.
Media:
Google AdWords, Facebook Ads.
Free: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, IG through posting.
Creative Execution
The best way to get people donate to the causes that have the highest impact such as Girl Scouts, empowering the future leaders of tomorrow, narratives is what will emotionally appeal to people. This can be done through various ads that can be posted throughout various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Focusing on results from Girl Scouts that have had an impact on girls’ lives. These ads can be easy and simple to execute.
Instagram/Facebook
Staying on top of social media is extremely important. By being active, you are expressing to a wider audience that Girl Scouts is relevant and doing something to empower young girls. Here we have an Instagram post where you see a young woman who was once a girl scout. The ad can run as a campaign of successful spokeswomen who were once Girl Scouts. This personal story conveys emotional appeal which will generate donations.
This Twitter post emphasizes what Girl Scouts of Chicago and Northwest Indiana do. It shows a young girl following her dream in the Chicagoland area. The idea behind this message is that everyone was a girl scout and girl scouts need access to role models of all career paths. This shows that the doctor is still a girl scout at heart. The young girl shows her ambitions of being a doctor and can see it executed through the adult girl scout. The hospital, agency, or corporation can share and retweet these posts of their employee meeting with a girl scout and it can create more connection to larger institutions.
Pinterest is popular among adult women and should be utilized in ever facet of this form of media. When searching “empowering”, “girl”, and “activities” we want Girl Scouts to show up with sponsored content. This changes the perception of our audience that Girl Scouts isn’t about the cookies, but about empowering young women. This will help position the brand to be understand correctly.
Donor's Badge via Social Media
People love to show others their generosity. When there is a cause that is near and dear to people’s hearts, they want to show that to others. This is a post that can be shared when someone pledges to the women of tomorrow. After someone makes a donation, we want our donors to talk about it. We created a shareable image that we will invite our donor to post on social media. This spreads awareness to the cause, that girls are our future leaders and that Girl Scouts has implemented a program to help girls in underserved communities learn science, technology, engineering, art and math This will allow our donors to post about what they believe in and maybe share that their daughter just joined girl scouts so they made a pledge. This will create conversation, friends may ask questions, and hopefully inspire others to donate too.
Newsletter
The newsletter we created will keep the reader interested due to its limited length. We wanted Girl Scouts to come across as transparent to our donors. Where the money is going to, to who, what will the donation do for a girl scout. We chose a narrative because our research found that is more appealing that facts or statistics. We included three events the reader can look out for during the month and invited the reader to post about their thoughts, feelings, or their story to create conversation.
Media Plan
Your goal was to increase Girl Scouts’ number of donors by 20% from November 2017 to December 2018 ($350,000 goal). We have determined that the budget of $56,000 will be allocated toward print mailers (keeping donor base who prefers it), Facebook ads, and Google AdWords. This will garner enough exposure to hit our goal.
In Closing...
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