Olive Garden Round Up for BGCA

Campaign: Olive Garden Round Up for BGCA
Company: Olive Garden (Darden)
Nonprofit Partner: Boys and Girls Clubs of America
Launch Date: September 22, 2014

Campaign:

Olive Garden’s most popular promotion – Never Ending Pasta Bowl – is back for the 19th year, and this time it’s layering on its first-ever cause marketing promotion. The Olive Garden is asking guests to round up their checks in support of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America through November 9th. To kick off the campaign, 700 Olive Garden restaurants surprised kids at their local BGCA clubs with pasta, breadsticks and salad.

Our Take:

According to Chad Royal-Pascoe, National VP of Corporate and Cause Partnerships at BGCA, it was critical to keep this campaign simple and streamlined for Olive Garden employees and non-intrusive for Olive Garden customers. Here’s how they accomplished both: Customers are greeted by a banner announcing the partnership when they enter the restaurant. Their server will be wearing a ribbon reminding them to round-up (shown at right). When presented with their bill, diners will see an info card about the campaign (shown below) as well as a line item on the receipt itself for consumers to add in a donation amount. Visible and simple yet low pressure. We’re excited to see what this first-year effort will reap for both company and cause!