How Rezidor's Box Appeal has helped thousands

Rezidor Hotel Group’s Klara Zakis, manager PR and communications MENA, explains how the group took the bold step of relaunching its popular charity campaign and reveals how it has already reaped the results and helped 10,000 of the region’s labourers

Last issue, Hotelier reported that The Rezidor Hotel Group was relaunching The Box Appeal, its charity campaign formerly known as the Shoe box Appeal, in order to raise increased awareness and generate much-needed practical support for labourers in the region.

In the weeks following, the campaign has been an overwhelming success, with Radisson Blu and Park Inn hotels in the UAE, Bahrain and Oman taking part, involving their local communities and filling thousands of boxes with basic items.

The process actually started way back in January this year, however, and here, Klara Zakis, manager PR and communications MENA for Rezidor, recalls in a step-by-step diary how the initiative started, challenges overcome and suggests useful tips for hoteliers looking to develop their own CSR programmes.

January 2011
So there I am, the new girl. I’ve only been at The Rezidor Hotel Group for one month, so this was my first time in one of our monthly meetings. Then the now infamous sentence was muttered.... “Let’s make 2011 the biggest box appeal ever, who wants to lead the campaign?” said Marko Hytönen, VP.

Here’s my chance, I thought; time to make a good impression. So before I knew it my hand shot up: “I think it would make sense if PR took charge of this one.”

“Great” he replied, “this year I want to fill 10,000 boxes, let’s help more people than ever before.”

I walked away from the meeting and suddenly it dawned on me — 10,000 boxes! What was I thinking, how was I going to do this?

May
A few months on and all nine of our UAE hotels are geared up and ready to take part, plus Cairo, Bahrain and both our hotels in Oman. The hotels needed no convincing to come on board, but that 10,000 target is still very much on my mind.

With the campaign destined to be bigger than ever, we decide the appeal needs a fresh new look, a unified brand. So no matter what country the campaign is run in, it has consistency and is instantly recognisable.

First up was a new name, we wanted to move away from the word ‘Shoe box’ to something that would translate to all regions and so The Box Appeal was born. It took several more hours of brainstorming (and doughnuts) to come up with just one short, memorable, punchy sentence that would describe what The Box Appeal was all about. Then finally it struck us — Small Box. Big Difference.

We approach branding agency North55 to help us and they agree to generously donate time and resources to create a brand new logo and most excitingly, a new design for the all- important boxes.

I work closely with North55 over the next few weeks. They come up with several ideas but we decide to go for an eye catching red design. The logo was inspired by Rezidor’s current Responsible Business logo and around the edges the logo depicts the journey of The Box Appeal, from the shop, to the delivery truck, to the happy labourers at the end.

It’s exactly what the campaign needs — eye catching, modern and fresh. We love it so much we decide to create banners, email footers, leaflets and even t-shirts, all of which will be used later to promote the appeal.

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June
Now we have the new boxes and logo, it’s time for me to present the concept to other local companies to try and garner as much support as possible. First stop is the Radio 1 and 2 studios.

I enter the board room nervously, ready to pitch the idea. Thirty minutes later I leave jubilant, as the Radio 1 and 2 teams love The Box Appeal and agree to support the campaign on air. This is the boost we need to make sure that everyone in the UAE knows about the campaign.

From then on the good news keeps coming; Red Crescent and Tecom pledge their support in Dubai as well as Merge radio and some shopping malls in Oman.

The rest of June is dedicated to the participating hotels, which start to work on individual plans to fill the boxes once they arrive. Everything from in-house signage, to storage is discussed. Each hotel tries to come up with ways to reach out to the community.

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July
July is a whirlwind of activity. Our Facebook page goes live and our new Box Appeal t-shirts and banners arrive and then our media campaign starts. The media campaign is coordinated so the overall message is consistent in each country. This involves six different versions of the same press release!

August
We begin to receive a lot of press coverage on the appeal. Our Facebook page becomes a hive of activity and the phone is ringing off the hook with companies and individuals who want to get involved.

I travel to Ajman to Rashid Printers, get lost for two hours on my way there and the printers have to come out and rescue me. But it’s all worth it as I give the final sign-off to the Box Appeal boxes. Before I know it, 10,000 boxes are whooshing through the industrial printers.

No going back now!

It’s Wednesday August 10 and our hotels in the UAE have just taken delivery of the boxes. The campaign officially starts in just a few days — I hop on a plane tomorrow to Oman to launch The Box Appeal there. I feel like the President on the campaign trail! I’ll be overseeing radio and print interviews as well as holding a press conference.

After months of planning I’m not nervous about filling these boxes anymore; It’s about more than that. All the hotels are working together and so is the local community.

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Zakis' top tips
Are you launching a charity appeal? Here are some of the critical areas for consideration:

Relationships
First and foremost, it’s the age old rule — be nice to people. Treat them how you would like to be treated, as you never know when you might need them. Throughout this campaign I had to rely on the kindness of people from lending vans so we could pick up boxes, to volunteers who’ve helped pack boxes, to the teachers who let us hijack their lessons so we could get children involved, to free radio airtime.

PR campaign
People often assume that PR is just about sending a press release out. The whole of The Box Appeal campaign relied on PR as we had no budget for advertising/marketing. The PR campaign for The Box Appeal actually extended beyond the media; I would say 50% of it was pure community relations. Never underestimate the power of word of mouth.

We invested a lot of time and effort approaching schools, expatriate groups, women’s guilds and embassies to get them involved in The Box Appeal.

Free tools — social media
Like our PR activities, social media was crucial to the success of this campaign; not only is it a free tool but it gave a further sense of community to the appeal by allowing people to share their thoughts about the Box Appeal and gave our supporters a sense of involvement. We asked them to post photos of themselves filling boxes, which meant that the Facebook page always had plenty of fresh content which helped to keep it interesting.

Be Creative
The campaign ran for a month, so it was a challenge to keep the momentum going. We did this by using the media and did weekly up-dates with key press. We also did a lot of community activities, we went into schools and held drawing competitions, we held competitions within hotels and offices to see which teams could collect the most boxes.

We also did The Box Appeal tour with the breakfast team from Radio 1, they toured several locations in Abu Dhabi picking up boxes from schools and offices.

Utilizing your team
There’s not one single Rezidor team member that didn’t talk to people every single day about The Box Appeal. From the reception staff who talked about it whilst people were checking in to the sales team, who when out and about visiting clients took boxes with them, to the purchasing teams who made use of their contacts within the industry to fill boxes.

Passion and commitment
Everyone has to be committed and go beyond what their job roles entail to make a campaign like The Box Appeal work. The Box Appeal teams worked on their weekends to sort through all the boxes that were delivered, they drove all over the different cities dropping off and picking up boxes, they spent their afternoons in supermarkets telling shoppers about the appeal.

We had a dedicated team in each hotel and they all had a sense of ownership with regards to the project. I have experienced passion for this project in the most unlikely of people — you would be very surprised how passionate people can become about a project like this and the lengths that they will go to, to help the appeal succeed.

Time
When it comes to a charity campaign you can’t hire people to run around for you — you have to be prepared to do the dirty jobs yourself and get involved in every element of the project. The Box Appeal teams have been unloading boxes in the boiling hot sun, making up 100s of boxes, and individually calling people to remind them to bring their box back to the hotel.

This is all very time consuming, so it’s important that if you undertake a campaign and you want it to be successful, that you have the man power, but also that you allow members of your team to have a little extra time to take part in activities like this. This year’s campaign has taught me that the logistics part of the campaign is the most time consuming element of an activity like this.

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August 15 – Launch Day
The Box Appeal officially launched on August 15. This year was the first year we took the Box Appeal outside of the UAE.

One of the biggest challenges was making sure local printers stuck to our guidelines and the boxes looked the same so the campaign was consistent, but at the same time slightly adapting the concept to each market so it was helping those who needed it most in that country.

The launch in Muscat went well, the local community there got involved straight away with 100s of boxes being picked up by schools and other local community groups. In both Oman and Bahrain this year we had pick-up points installed in supermarkets. This went well and is something we would look at implementing in the UAE too.

At the end of the first two weeks of The Box Appeal, we have about half the boxes distributed. Post Eid we experience a huge increase in requests for boxes. During the last week of the appeal we run out of boxes and had to ask people to bring the items in in any box they could find.

Over the next 15 days the hotel teams work hard. They go into schools and educate children about The Box Appeal, getting them involved filling boxes. The children add their own touches to the boxes, such as a picture. The schools become the largest donators of boxes throughout the campaign.

We receive so many requests for boxes we extend the deadline for people to return boxes until September 30 — at the time of writing we had an estimated 9,912 boxes returned.

Due to the amount of boxes, there will be several distribution days at labour camps between September 25 and October 2. Overall, it’s a fantastic achievement and a record amount of boxes for The Box Appeal. Already, the teams are planning how we can make the 2012 Box Appeal bigger and better than ever.