Movember Pinterest Board

Koru Naturals manufactures and sells skin and hair care products from New Zealand, and also supports health care in a variety of ways, including giveaways of lanolin to nurses, so a Movember Pinterest board was a natural for them.

Movember, often called “No Shave November” in the U.S., is a men’s health awareness initiative which started in Australia and New Zealand in 1999. In the antipodes, a mustache is sometimes fondly called a “mo.” The Movember organization combined “mo” and “November” into “Movember.” They then encouraged men to quit shaving for the month of November in order to provide a highly visual reminder for onlookers. Whether the results are scruffy or luxuriant, people are bound to start wondering why so many guys are walking around with facial hair in November. This allows the “Mo Bros” to open a conversation about topics like prostate cancer that may otherwise be difficult to discuss. The intriguing awareness campaign has spread over the years to the Americas and Europe, with Canada now leading the pack in donations to Movember charities.

One of Koru’s products is Stingray Bay Botanical Beard and Moustache Gloss, a preparation of beeswax, New Zealand Tawari honey, and essential oils that keeps facial hair under control and smelling great. We persuaded mustachioed gents to try it and let us feature them on a Pinterest board. Women — the main users of Pinterest and also frequent buyers of Stingray Bay products for gifts — surprised us by volunteering to be on the board as well.

The Movember Pinterest Board was a simple, fun project that can easily be added to in future. It also has become the most popular board for Koru Naturals, with the highest number of impressions, repins, and clicks through of any of their boards. The number of visits to their website from Pinterest also increased significantly.

Here’s what made this a good social media campaign:

• A cause that fits the company, the product, and the brand makes the connection natural and authentic. Causes do well in social media as a rule, and consumers  like a company that takes a stand.
• A simple idea provides an economical campaign — but it is also easy to build on in future years. Being able to try out an idea and then use the data collected to make strategic plans for the future is priceless.
• Humans are hard-wired to like to look at smiling faces. In this case, the authenticity and diversity of the smiling faces we collected made for an appealing Pinterest board. Visual appeal is a must for a successful social media campaign.