Avon's Global Program: Kiss Goodbye To Breast Cancer Essay.

Overview of the Kiss Goodbye to Breast Cancer program

Question:

Discuss about the Public Relation Adaptation Plan for Empowerment.

True in the corporate social responsibility as one of the main benefactor of women health and empowerment, Avon, one of the known brands in women’s cosmetics and products launched a Global program known as “ Kiss Goodbye to breast cancer” in the year of 2001. The key objectives of the programs was to create awareness and raise funds to improve provide better support to the cause of breast cancer as well as support for the research of breast cancer cure.

Over the last 25 years and with the support of Avon’s six millions customers, representatives, Avon walkers and employees have donated more than $800 million to the breast cancer causes as well as educating about 180 million women about the disease.

Avon is supposed to debut its campaign in South Africa in partnership to the South African Cancer Society. Avon, South Africa launches its own Kiss Goodbye to breast cancer campaign on November 2017. The awareness program will uphold the significance of the campaign stating the significance of awareness and early detection of the disease through celebrities, charitable events, walk for cause and media relations from the different departments of public, private and entertainment world.  The fundraising part of the campaign would feature the sale of limited edition lipsticks from November through December until January 2018. Ten  South African rand to be donated on every lipstick that is to be sold for the support and welfare of cancer patients and support the cancer research initiative to benefit the South African women and come from the less privileged segregation of the population (Hendrix,  Hayes & Kumar, 2012).

The ‘Kiss Goodbye to Breast Cancer’ campaign by Avon had launched in the year 2001for the first time. The campaign has emphasized on the significance of raising awareness in women and early detection of the disease as the best cure. In Philippines this campaign has collaborated with the Philippine General Hospital Cancer Institute and established a breast care centre there along with purchasing a new mammography machine for the centre. Taking this program to South Africa would require some changes in the policy due to the cultural difference in both the countries.

This is a fundamental issue that has been addressed in the cultural dimension. The Philippines is a country with a score of 32 which is considered to be a collectivistic society. It indicates that there is a close knit commitment with all the group members and there is a sense of loyalty in the culture as well (Mazodier & Merunka, 2012)). On the other hand, South Africa has a score of 65 and it is considered as an individualist society. This indicates that the social framework in the country is loosely knit and most individuals are expected to look out for their own selves (Ijabadeniyi, Govender & Veerasamy, 2015). Therefore, this PR campaign should be targeted mostly towards the individual development in place of mass development in Philippines. 

Success of the program in various countries

With the score 94, the Philippines is considered to be hierarchical society. People in this country tend to accept the hierarchical order where each person has a certain place and no justification is provided. However, South Africa has an entirely different power distance dimension with the score 49 which indicates that in the hierarchical order, the subordinates are expected to be instructed and expect an autocrat culture within the organization. Mostly it has been found out that with the higher power distance such as the Philippines, the government has a major control on the society, therefore the campaign should also make a close relationship with the government officials. However in case of South Africa, the PR practitioners should not have to take such initiatives.

Scoring 64, the Philippines is a masculine society that is driven by achievement, competition and success. The managers in such a society are expected to be assertive and decisive. In a similar way, South Africa also scores 63 in this cultural dimension and considered to be a masculine society too. Therefore, in this respect, there will be no such changes in the PR campaign.

The Philippines scores 44 on this cultural dimension, therefore it has a low performance of avoiding uncertainty. Therefore, it is evident that the country has a relaxed approach while working with the principles. South Africa also scores similar in the dimension, therefore the schedules are flexible, punctuality is not necessary and innovation is not considered to be a threatening approach. However, it should also be mentioned that in such a culture, the individuals may have to work hard for convincing the clients in terms of addressing the potential and urgent issues.

The Philippines has a low score (27) in this dimension which indicates that the country is more normative than being pragmatic. In a similar way, South Africa also scores low (34) in this dimension showing that people have a strong concern in such a society in order to establish the truth.

Filipino women have a higher mortality rate out of breast cancer than any other country. However, it has been observed that they lack in knowledge regarding the significance of breast cancer. On the contrary, in South Africa, around 49.7% women know at least three breast cancer symptoms. However, larger sections of women are still unaware of the disease and its cure. Therefore, through Avon’s campaign, the PR professionals have targeted the women through the help of television, radio and other print media for raising the awareness.

Launching the campaign in South Africa

In the Philippines, the government has started few cancer control programs and cancer control centers. Avon’s campaign has been critically approved from the public relation industry in the country as well. On the contrary, South Africa still does not have much government support in the public relations industry for raising awareness for breast cancer (Mazanec et al., 2015). Therefore, the PR professionals in South Africa will also require gaining the trust of government officials for making it an official awareness raising campaign.

The Philippines has one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. Therefore, it is much easier for raising any awareness program in the country. On the other hand, South African economy is suffering from different adverse factors. The unemployment rate is higher; therefore raising such an awareness program may face several issues at the initial stage. The rate of breast cancer is also higher in the women coming from a lower poverty line. Therefore, the PR program may face difficulties at the initial stage as these women may not avail Avon’s lipstick. Therefore, the campaign should make effective steps for targeting all women in the country.

The Public Relations Society of Philippines has received award of excellence, which indicate that the government is also making effective steps for reaching the general population. However, the scenario is entirely different in South Africa, therefore the PR program should approach to the government officials as well.

The target audience is mostly the women who are coming from middle and lower income group as the breast cancer rate is higher within this class. The campaign may include local celebrities for gaining the attention of the target group.

The PR campaign should involve all the available digital media such as television, radio and the print media. Other than that, the campaign should also involve social media for raising more awareness amongst women.

Push selling the lipsticks may be considered to be unethical sometimes, therefore while raising the awareness for breast cancer programs, the PR professionals should ensure that the program should not turn into a mere push selling program, rather it should focus more on the awareness raising program.

The campaign that has been scheduled to make its debut in south Africa  would be a twofold program campaign. The primary objective is to create an increased awareness amongst the South African women about the complications and occurrence of breast cancer. The second objective is to raise funds for every breast cancer patient both able and under-privileged as well as fund the research to mitigate the occurrences and create an alternative cure for the disease to diminish the after effects of the usual cancer treatments on the external appearance of women. The campaign is programmed to be operated in collaboration with the South African Cancer Society (Grunig, 2013).

Cultural differences and challenges

The Kiss Goodbye to Breast Cancer is a multiple year campaign. The project is a segment of the overall positioning of Avon as a socially responsible corporate organization that actively supports women health and women empowerment. The reason adopting these objectives being, breast cancer is a worldwide concern and millions of women suffer the aftermath of cancer diagnosis. This initiative has been taken with a motive to help such women in urgent need of both moral and financial support.

The strategies that are supposed to be used are more or less similar to the previous campaign that had taken place. The reason for using such strategies being, the effectiveness and having the potential to grab the attention of the targeted audiences as well as reach to over to a larger segment to spread the message as well as impact effectively.

For the optimal impact of the awareness part of the campaign, Avon, South Africa would target the opinionated leaders in the media and shall used known faces as well as celebrities to spread the message amongst the masses. The Avon employees, especially the women would be deployed along with the South African Cancer Society volunteers to have a face to face interaction with the target audiences.

The action strategies includes the maintenance of the same corporate culture without making any major change in the approach with regards to the Kiss Goodbye to Breast cancer  campaign. The company has already positioned itself as a cultivator of corporate social responsibility since the 1990s. Therefore, it would not be a difficult to establish itself in the advocacy of women’s health and empowerment. The campaign is not a do alone project so Avon would be forming collaborations with the media moguls, celebrities, cancer support network agencies and the South African Cancer Society. With this joint venture, Avon would ensure an authenticity in the adopted cause.

The communication strategies would ensure a high rate of visibility in the conducted campaign. The communication strategy that would aware about the setbacks due to the lack of effective communication can be achieved with proper implementation and use of strategies to efficiently transfer the message to the masses. Careful selection of the media and the target audience would ensure the success of conducting the awareness program and the campaign. Although South Africa is a diverse country in its cultures and diversity, English is the common understandable language that can be used to propagate the message. In other parts of the region where there are different cultural division, the respective lingual translation can be helpful for understanding the campaign message and the awareness program. It should also be taken into consideration that the effective knowledge in the language does not necessarily means the possession of effective subject knowledge, in this case knowledge about breast cancer. The precise and medicated terminologies that are to be used should be made by bout knowledgeable as well as well communicative health workers, who are to be accompanied by the Avon employees to explain and discuss about the purpose of the campaign and its advantages.

The effective tactics that can be used in this campaign is to use the celebrities and well recognized faced in the television who are going to support the campaign all throughout the three months long duration. The special celebrity endorse products with specific and customized designs related to use of attractive colors, mostly pink can be used to attract the attention of the masses. The redesigning of the fliers with effective message in catchy phrases and added on colors would ensure a better customer reach. Catch lines such as “A LIPSTICK can change your life”, would be helpful to keep a ambiguity and curiosity amongst the masses, who would be eager to know more about the matter in concern. Effective knowledge dispersion related to the self-examination methods can be well illustrated since the methods are similar and do not have much change in nature.

However, no formal evolution method can be conducted except for the feedback form that can be used to understand and analyze the effectiveness of the entire campaign conducted by Avon. Although, the Avon South African senior public relations manager can do look forward to check the effective dispersion of the message and the campaign as well as the efficient use of the medium of propagation. This evaluation can be done to understand and analyze the necessary changes that can be done on the same campaign, in the future.

References

Grunig, J. E. (Ed.). (2013). Excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge.

Hendrix, J. A., Hayes, D. C., & Kumar, P. D. (2012). Public relations cases. Cengage Learning..

Ijabadeniyi, A., Govender, J. P., & Veerasamy, D. (2015). The Influence Of Cultural Diversity On Marketing Communication: A Case Of Africans And Indians In Durban, South Africa. International Business & Economics Research Journal (IBER), 14(6), 869-882.

Mazanec, J. A., Crotts, J. C., Gursoy, D., & Lu, L. (2015). Homogeneity versus heterogeneity of cultural values: An item-response theoretical approach applying Hofstede's cultural dimensions in a single nation. Tourism Management, 48, 299-304.

Mazodier, M., & Merunka, D. (2012). Achieving brand loyalty through sponsorship: the role of fit and self-congruity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(6), 807-820.