It's half way through, and thanks to Movember there is an array of vaguely ridiculous, yet earnest looking guys trying to coax out the best ‘mo they possibly can this month, but the philanthropic venture has its eyes on new initiatives to boost the movement as growth plateaus in Australia.
As the founding market of the now global awareness and fundraising movement Movember, growth in Australia, along with the UK and Canada has plateaued, according to founder and CEO Adam Garone.
To continue to drive the movement and counter the plateau, Movember is testing a number of initiatives designed to drive Movember. Encourage more women to participate – not in 'Mo growing, of course, but in other ways, developing a more defined link between the Movember brand and the men’s health causes it supports and mulling extending the brand into year-round activity are on the charity brand’s agenda.
Speaking to AdNews during his visit to Melbourne this week, Garone, who is based in LA, said the movement here has reached maturity, which means registrations for participants isn’t growing at the same rate it is in younger markets like mainland Europe or the US, which has always been a difficult market for the movement to crack.
It has soft launched the ‘Move’ for Movember campaign this year to gauge appetite for a more health oriented activity to get more people – particularly women – involved with Movember. It is encouraging people to move more during Movember, whether it’s something small like walking around the office more, or something “epic” like cycling across Canada.
Move was established after research suggested the sedentary lifestyle most people now lead can be as damaging to health as smoking, said Garone. It will become a greater focus for Movember in the coming years.
Although Move is more directly health focused, Garone is keen Movember doesn’t overstep and turn off its fan-base by becoming preachy.
He says: “[Movember] is doing something that has never been achieved before – we’re getting men engaged in talking about health. Fun has always been our Trojan horse; the moustache has been the bridge. If we go too hard on health and preventative health, we’ll lose our community.”
The organisation is also looking at how it could extend its reach beyond the campaign month of November and become a more year-round affair, but there are pros and cons, says Garone.
Opportunities like the London marathon held in the British summer are currently out of reach and the organisation doesn’t allow runners to raise money for it. There have also been approaches from music festivals for Movember to provide branded areas, or pop-up barber shops that could potentially help the brand extend beyond November.
It's a delicate balance, says Garone, because having such a tight focus on one campaign month is a real strength and there's the possibility the Movember brand could be diluted and lose relevance if it tries to reach beyond its November heartland.
“We’ve never done it before but I’m going to be challenging the team with it this year. From a brand point of view Movember is intrinsically linked with November, but men’s health is a year-round issue and should be a year round conversation, but we have to be really careful but it’s an interesting brand conversation for us to have,” he says.
Garone cites breast cancer charities and says that while October is breast cancer awareness month, because there are pink themed events, campaigns and activity, all year the October campaign doesn’t have as much punch as Movember has.
One way of building a year round presence is through the network of barber shops Movember has built up and formalised this year with the Mo Rated barber scheme. As part of its efforts to break down the taboos men feel around talking about mental health, Movember is plotting a training programme that will train barbers to deal with mental health issues and be able to offer their customers advice about available local services if the conversation arises. Posters, window decals and branded aprons will all appear in barber shops.
Because men are “hopeless at seeking help”, Garone wants Movember to make barber shops a non-threatening place for men to talk about mental health issues and seek basic help if they need.
While Movember is primarily about raising awareness and money for men’s health charities, Adam is clear that the organisation is business minded and not a not-for profit organisation – it wants to maximise profits and return these to the charity partners – not shareholders. However, whether participants are fundraising or not for Movember doesn’t matter, because the conversation around men’s health is what’s important says Garone.
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