Off the Rak
Walt Rakowich's passion to help shape a generation of leaders who lead with honesty, humility and heart inspired him to launch Off the Rak: Conversations on Transformative Leadership. Featuring rich and raw conversations with notable leaders across different industries, Off the Rak inspires curious leaders to embrace challenges, seize opportunities and become positive influences in their world.
Off the Rak
A World of Good: How Purpose Helps Business Succeed with Carol Cone
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As human beings, we crave purpose. Ask any pastor, priest, monk, imam, rabbi, politician, philosopher, or psychologist. We also expect it of our organizations — in today’s transparent world, businesses are expected to stand for more than just profits if they are to attract top talent and influential stakeholders. Carol Cone is a pioneer in cause marketing, widely regarded as the creator of the purpose movement in business. For more than 35 years, she has helped brands integrate social impact into their core strategies, proving that doing good is also good for business. She joins Off the Rak to share her front-row insights into how purpose drives innovation, impact, and success.
About the Guest
Carol Cone is internationally recognized as a pioneer in purpose-driven business strategies, often hailed as the “Purpose Queen” by the BBC. For over 35 years, she has been at the forefront of linking companies and brands with social issues to drive both business and societal impact.
In 1980, Carol founded Cone Inc., where she introduced the innovative concept of integrating corporate interests with social causes. Her groundbreaking campaigns include the creation of the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, which expanded to 50 countries and raised over $1 billion, and the development of My Special Aflac Duck, a social robot designed to comfort children undergoing cancer treatment, recognized by Time Magazine as one of the Best Inventions of 2018.
As the founder and CEO of Carol Cone ON PURPOSE, her third enterprise dedicated to purpose, Carol continues to educate, inspire, and accelerate purpose strategies for corporations, brands, and nonprofits worldwide. Her extensive body of work has earned her numerous accolades, including being named one of the world’s seven Sustainability Pioneers by Sustainable Brands and “arguably the most powerful and visible figure in the world of ‘Cause Branding'” by PRWeek.
Beyond her professional achievements, Carol is an avid equestrienne, embodying the courage and freedom symbolized by the horse, which she considers her personal power symbol. Her passion for purpose extends into her personal life, reflecting her belief in aligning one’s work with deeper meaning and societal contribution.
Links in this Episode
Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding: Seven Principles to Power Extraordinary Results by Jocelyne Daw and Carol Cone
Learn more about Off the Rak and watch past episodes at waltrakowich.com/offtherak
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Welcome to another episode of off the Rak. I'm Walt Rakwich and I'm grateful to have you here as we explore what it means to practice transformative leadership. Carol Cohn has spent over 35 years helping brands integrate social impact into their core strategies. In 1983, Carol founded Cone Inc. The world's first and largest social impact agency, where she pioneered landmark movements like the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, American Heart Association's Go Red for women, and PNC's $500 million grow up great Early Childhood Education initiative. As founder and CEO of Carol Cohn On Purpose, she continues to advise Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and emerging leaders on leveraging purpose for growth and societal change. Her campaigns have raised over 5 billion billion for social causes. And her innovation in corporate social responsibility has been the subject of multiple Harvard Business Review case studies. Carol also founded the Purpose Collaborative, a global network of over 40 purpose driven firms. She's the host of the Purpose360 podcast, a masterclass on embedding and activating purpose in business. Her commitment extends beyond business. She's funded numerous philanthropic efforts, including work in equestrian, sports, and wildlife conservation. So join us for a conversation with this visionary leader as we explore how purpose fuels innovation, impact, and success. Carol, it is, it's great to have you on the show. So, so good to have you. I know, I know you and I talked a little bit before this. We're both Floridians.
Carol Cohn:There you go.
Walt Rakowich:And I just like to, you know, know. What do you like to do in Florida? I mean, what do you kind of keep your yourself busy on?
Carol Cohn:Well, people always, yeah, a lot of work. People always ask me how did I get to Florida. And Florida is, I'm in Wellington and it's the winter equestrian capital of the world. And they have a huge series of horse shows. They have the polo, they have dressage and such. And so I started coming down in 2000 and since I'm so competitive, I was a circuit champion, let's see, in 4 and 3 and 4 and 6 and 7. And then I was also a national champion who's horse jumping. Not too high, but you have to be really smooth. And it's really a blast jumping horses. It's like flying. So I was national champion in 2006 and so became a full time resident in 2015 or something like that. And so we're here full time. But my horses, in the summer, it's too hot for them, so they go north. So they go to the Saratoga area in New York. And then I have to Fly up to be with them.
Walt Rakowich:Wow, that is. That is amazing. And you're also a good skier, from what I understand.
Carol Cohn:Well, I used to be a good skier in the olden days, and I grew up in New England, and so, man, we skied like ice. And three lift coat days at Stowe. It was freezing. And then when I did my first trip out west, that was it. No more New England, no more Mont Tremblant. It was like Vail. And it was everything else out west. And actually we represented Steamboat for a while and Billy Kid and I were friends for a while.
Walt Rakowich:Oh, wow. Well, and you know, I'm, I'm. I live part of the year. I live in Colorado as well. So we, we do like to ski and we're, we're, we do enjoy Vail a lot. So it's, it's kind of nice to have a little bit of both worlds, right? A little bit of that skiing and also enjoy the warm weather when you can.
Carol Cohn:I'm really a warm weather person.
Walt Rakowich:I know. And the older we get, the more people we are. So, Carol, your career has been really dedicated to helping companies find and live their purpose. And I want to get into that, I really do. But I want to find out a little bit more about you. How did you get involved in this? Was there a defining moment in your life that kind of shaped the way you think about purpose?
Carol Cohn:Well, I think part of it was my upbringing and the time that I was growing up. And I grew up during the Vietnam War years, and I was just barely old enough when President Kennedy was shot. And then Senator Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and then you had all the civil rights movement. And I went to an activist university, Brandeis University. And it was during that time, it was the years of the student strike, and Basically it was 1969, 1970. And so we. Brandeis was kind of the home for the Jewish population because they couldn't get into the regular schools and for black who weren't allowed. So it was very liberal. And so during the years of the student strike, we basically marched on Washington. We took over buildings. I always say I never burned any buildings, but something happened in the fall, and when the students went on strike organically, there was this thing created called the National Strike Information center at Brandeis. And basically all these students came together. And we decided because the schools were on strike, no one was going to classes. You had the horrible situation at Kent State where students were shot. And so we created. We're intellectual because we're Brandeis. We created something Like a newsroom. We didn't know what a newsroom was, but we would call our peers at other universities and say, what are you doing? Are you taking over buildings? Are you marching? What are you doing? What are you doing? Then we'd write a press release, which I had no idea what a press release was, but we just wrote up something and we sent it to the AP and upi. We did that to try and coalesce and give a voice to students during those highly turbulent times. We did not want the war. We wanted equal representation for blacks and whites. And. And so we were very serious. The little funny anecdote around that is that when we all left for summer, because you do leave school for summer. We left a $25,000 phone bill for the poor univ. For the university. So that, you know, I was just part of a team. And when I finally started, you know, when I went to college further, I. I love to write, so I like words. And then when I started a career, finally I decided to blend in my firm, I started in 19 early 83, and I was blending. It just happened intuitively. Like, could a company. I asked the question to myself, hey, self, could a company stand for something more than just making a profit? Could stand for helping to impact society. And so that's kind of the impetus to why at the time was called cause marketing. And then cause we called it cause branding and triple bottom line csr, et cetera, et cetera. And now today it's called purpose. And it just. It was in my gut. And my superhuman power is making connections. I'm a great connection maker. And the Rockport Shoe Company was my first purpose client.
Walt Rakowich:Huh. Wow. Wow, that's amazing. So you kind of. It really traces all the way back to your college days. It does sort of the way you think about things. But you've learned a lot since then about the intersection of purpose and business. And can you talk to us about that integration and why you think it's so important that businesses have a purpose and have a meaning?
Carol Cohn:Well, I think purpose is. We always define. It is. What do you stand for beyond making profits based in humanity? So what a company stands for. And companies need to know what is at their core, why do they exist? And there are, you know, a lot of companies and CEOs, we exist to make a profit. You know, we exist to support our shareholders. But there were some CEOs, especially in the earliest days, and I was just part of that group. There was, you know, Business for Social Responsibility and the Social Venture Network. And these were the, you know, I grew up with Ben and Jerry. I met Ben and Jerry and Tom Chappell of Tom's of Maine and Stonyfield Farm. And, you know, There were these CEOs that in their heart felt their companies could do more. And so if you take Ben and Jerry or the Body Shop, Anita Roddick, who passed away way too soon, she created the Body Shop to create a bully pulpit for people, indigenous cultures that could talk about raising clean food and clean products. And the Body Shop was a bully pulpit to talk about those indigenous cultures and Ben and Jerry's, all the different ice creams and the funny flavors, one young world swirled world and things like that. It was about telling, using beautiful and delicious and very kind of full, high fat, don't eat too much of it ice cream to promote causes and issues. And the same thing with Tom Chapel and Tom's, he actually had gone to seminary. And so at the earliest days, there were these people that said business shouldn't be separate from social issues or the environment. Business should be a means via its sourcing, via its employee engagement, via its community engagement, engaging with customers to do something more. That's the humanity part of it. And in the earliest years, it was, as I said, I make this very funny joke that the people doing this work, we could have been at maybe three or four tables of four in a restaurant. There were none of us. It was just so unique to have this point of view. And now there are conferences, dozens of conferences, and there are companies of all sizes realize that they want to provide meaning and belonging to their employees and then to their customers to stand for something more. And so there's different levels of integration, of purpose within a company. There's purpose at the center. For example, the Interface Carpet tile company they created, Ray Anderson, who unfortunately passed away again very, very early on, he said, could we. Because, you know, carpeting, if you, you know, the amount of carpeting that you'll throw out, if you're, you know, renovating, you know, a building or something. And his people came to him and said, can't we make this sustainable? And he learned about sustainability. And then he set the whole company on a journey to create products and materials that would not have, that could be recycled. And then ultimately today they suck up carbon. They're going to be carbon negative by 2040. So it's totally. It's a B2B company. You know, you can't buy it as a consumer, but it's a B2B company. And at the center, it's about the environment. It's about a great product that lasts long, that's made from, you know, recycled products and things like that, materials. So it's companies like that or Unilever, when Paul Pullman was there from 2009 to 2029, and he created the sustainable Living plan. And can our products, such as Dove or such as their lifebuoy soap or such as Vaseline, stand for something more than just making a profit? And that's what's so exciting. When you find those C suite leaders in a company and then they call me up and they go, carol, I really want to either enhance, evolve, or I want to create a deep purpose and then build my business around it. It is the most exciting type of work you could ever do.
Walt Rakowich:You know, it's interesting you'd say that because you also use the word evolve because some of these businesses might actually be doing something or doing this today, but you also help them define that market that maybe to their employees, their customers, et cetera, and maybe get better at it. And I heard somewhere you use Something called the P3 strategy, I think.
Carol Cohn:Right, right.
Walt Rakowich:So when you go into a business, take us through that.
Carol Cohn:Sure.
Walt Rakowich:You know, how do you employ this P3 strategy? Strategy. What do you call it?
Carol Cohn:It's precision, purpose, process. And I'm going to give you a story of a company that, you know, because you're from Pittsburgh. And I'm going to talk about pnc, PNC Bank. Bank, which was. I remember exactly where I was the day I got the call. I was actually at a horse show in Florida and a previous relationship. A woman from AT&T. Vance Lavelle, called me up and she said, you know, we're donating a lot of money to all sorts of causes, over $10 million. And our CEO, he wants to make that an asset that's going to work harder. And that was Jim Rohr. And so Vance said, could you come to Pittsburgh, talk to us, talk to us about how you approach this? And we had already. We had started doing this work. We connected Rockport and Walking and Reebok and Human Rights and Avon and breast cancer. So in the 80s and the 90s, we had some significant successes with companies getting focused on their purpose. And largely it was connecting to a aligned social issue. So Avon in the day, you'd think, oh, it's obvious, it's breast cancer. When Avon came to us in 1993, breast cancer was whispered. Nobody talked about it as an issue or a cause. And when we finally unleashed and launched the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade using their 2 million. 2 million women and giving them not just selling a product. And they also had their CEO who found us. Basically, he said, look, they sell this product, I help them in their head, but I don't help people in their heart. Help me do that. And we created the Breast Cancer Crusade. So the folks at PNC had heard about that, and Vance, we'd worked a tiny bit at att, so we went in and he said, look, we really want to stand for something. We really want to have a deep impact that needs to make sense. He didn't say aligned to because that wasn't the language that the CEO said. So, long story short, our P3 process is basically, it's really, really good thinking to develop the strategy. So understanding their brand, their business, their current social issues. They were engaged with their customer. And then what might an issue be that needed support, that all of those things could be aligned? And. And we looked at lots of things. And what does a bank do? A bank needs to help, whether businesses or people, be stronger in their financial knowledge and in growing their families and having support for their families and their businesses. They want to create solid and supportive communities, communities where they have economic development and wellness. So what's at the basis of a community? A family, especially if you're doing consumer banking. And so we were looking for what might a social issue be? And we found early childhood education, and we really studied it, and we understood that students, if a child was socially, emotionally and intellectually prepared for kindergarten, there was one piece of major research that said they would succeed more in life. And so we got all the numbers and we presented. We had Jim Rohr. So we have the CEO. We had the CEO, and we had Eva Bloom, who was president of the foundation, who is one of my dearest friends and such a delight to work with. We're presenting our process. This is what we learned from our conversations and our interviews. And here's the issue. Da, da. And we said, it's early childhood education. There was a pause in the room. And it's like what we, you know, and we had to explain, these are bankers. We had to explain the impact of having a child, especially an underserved child, but all children. And this is before Universal Pre K. This is way before one of the things that my firm, the Carol cone, on purpose does. And that what I do and my colleagues do, we connect the dots and we look to see where the hockey puck is going. Because companies where they have a CEO that says, I want to find something aligned with my business, to help advance it, to provide meaning and belonging for my employees and my customers. They usually want something that they can invest in over the long term and help it to grow. And so the room got silent. And then Jim Rohr went. You know, we just talked about. He said, yes, yes, this makes sense. Now go. What does it look like, though? How would we do it? So that's another part of the P3 process. So we looked at who might be the potential partners. No company can do this alone. They need to have a partner because they're a bank. They're not experts in early childhood education. And so the first thing we did is that we did research on the issue. Then we suggested who could be partners and one of the key, key structural foundations for that program that exists to this day. It is over 20 years old. And I'll tell you about the financial investment in a moment. But we created an advisory board. And what was extraordinary about, we looked for all the experts. They were academics, they were actually teachers. They were people, they were researchers. And we invited them to be on our advisory board. Nobody turned us down. And the reason they said, they said, no company has ever gotten behind what we believe is the cornerstone of a child having a greater success in life. And so, and I will tell you, that was 2004, and we launched with them, and they helped us to refine the program. Most of them are still on the advisory board today. And there's a new CEO at pnc, Jim Rohr retired, and Bill Demchak took it on. And I remember. So we would have these incredible meetings where we would have the advisory board there, and we'd be once a year, and we would talk about what we're doing. And I remember when Bill Demcheck came into the room, and the room is totally terrified. What? Cause usually there's a CEO change, and everything changes. And he walks to the front of the room and he says, I know this is the one thing you want to know, and are we going to continue? And it was called PNC Grow Up. Great. And he said, not only we're going to keep it, but we're going to grow it. And everybody took a deep breath and we kind of. I think we all clapped and we were so excited. And they continue. And then Eva Bloom, she retired, and then Sally McCready, who was her number two, she's now president of the foundation, doing a marvelous job. And I would like to say that the partners that we suggested and that they embraced. It was a little scary at first. We suggested Head Start, that Makes sense. So we went to the National Head Start Association. They had never worked with a company. We got them to work with us, but then we said, we need something that also has great content. And so I knew where that was. That was at Sesame Street. So I remember the first time we said to pnc, sesame Street's going to be a partner and it's going to be like, oh, $2 million for like three years. And they went, oh, no, that's. Oh, no, no, we can't. No. I don't know. And my philosophy is just have a meal. And so I got everybody together, Sesame street and Eva Bloom, and we all got together and it was like love at first sight. And they have worked with sesame since about 2004. So it has been an extraordinary, extraordinary relationship. They've touched millions and millions of children and teachers and they have fabulous information on their website. But I have to tell you about the courage and the vision of Jim Rohr. When we presented Head Start and sesame street and Mr. Rogers, who was in Pittsburgh, and. Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense. And we said, five years,$50 million commitment. And we're sitting there going like, oh, my God, what's he going to say? Whatever. The room goes cold, silent. And then he says, not big enough. Ten years, $100 million. And I will tell you that. And the $100 million, it's in volunteerism time and it's in pro bono time, and it's also in dollars and stuff to support the grants for the partners. It is now they have invested over over a half a billion dollars. They have this and the other thing they did, which we suggested. And so they were so wonderful as a client. We suggested Most companies have eight hours of paid time off to volunte, maybe 16. They have 40 hours of paid time off for their employees to volunteer. And they have continued to grow the program they work with. They have days like, like they have. They will. They also work with DonorsChoose. And DonorsChoose is. Is you can give money to a classroom or such. They have a day where any early childhood education program, one day they will pay for all of them. So they just continue to innovate and they're helping children all across the country because PNC is growing, growing, growing. Of course, they're acquiring. They're acquiring all sorts of different banking groups along the regions. But I also have to tell you one other thing about the business, because you've got business people listening to this conversation. Carol, that's wonderful. It's so great. They pat me in the head, isn't it wonderful? But this is how it also helps the business. One, their employees are just absolutely thrilled about working for a bank with such meaning and providing them with opportunities to volunteer and belong. But they also, when they go into a new market, it allows their presidents, their senior vice presidents who are looking for business banking relationships to have a meal with potential customer. And here's what they say. They say, yes, we're pnc. We've been around for this long. We have these incredible, you know, they've got, you know, great returns and, you know, very, they're very, very thoughtful bank. But they say, this is what we're investing in, your community.
Walt Rakowich:Yeah.
Carol Cohn:And they talk about grow up. Great. And it opens the door to a relationship. So it's not about a transaction, it's about a transformation. And that's where, and I love pnc. We're not working with them anymore. We work with them for 15 years. And so I was very, very proud of that. And I'm so proud of Sally and her team and what they continue to do. And it's just, it's. That is like a best practice for a company that they, you know, that wanted to evolve and really focus on something. So that's one of my favorite stories.
Walt Rakowich:I just want you to know that. Couple things. My sister works at pnc. Her husband used to work at pnc. And I'm on the board of a company called Ventas, whose CEO, Debbie Caffaro, is on the board of pnc. And I just want you to know they would be proud to hear what you just said.
Carol Cohn:They're a great bank. They really are a great bank. Great, great leadership, commitment. And part of the thing here is the long term view. I mean, it's one, it's having alignment through the P3 process. So it makes sense for the business. Breast cancer would not have made sense. Not that they don't. And they also, by the way, they still give money to other causes, but this is the one they really, really focus on.
Walt Rakowich:Yeah.
Carol Cohn:Or they use it as a lens. So the Philadelphia Flower show, they said, we will continue to fund you if you put in something related to three and four year olds. So they put in an education program. So there's alignment. And that's what companies need to do today.
Walt Rakowich:Yeah. So, Carol, in the past you've emphasized the importance of authenticity. Critically important, right? Particularly.
Carol Cohn:Absolutely.
Walt Rakowich:Programs. You know, how can organizations ensure that their purpose initiatives are genuine, not perceived as superficial or opportunistic or something like that.
Carol Cohn:And unfortunately today, purpose became Almost performative. And companies are going, yeah, we're going to donate a million dollars to something and we're going to have a day of service. It's not enough. I mean, authenticity, it starts in the C suite. So it starts with the CEO and his and her leadership showing up at volunteerism. Knowing the issue. There's something I love to talk about which is a walkabout that the important people in the company, whether it's supply chain, you know, if they're working in chocolate, if you're mars, that you go to cocoa countries and that's overseas and that's in Africa and you see what's, is there real labor or is it child labor? I mean, authenticity needs to track all the way down to where do you source your content, your materials, how do you support it, your values? Are your values pulled into. If your values are about integrity and you know, in your social involvement, your social impact and we have a day of, you know, this and we only give $500,000 or something. Yeah, thank you for doing that. But it needs to be embedded in the culture. That's where the, where the value is. That's where you're giving the business support to grow in an appropriate way. And I'll tell you, you might, you know, Gen Z, you look at Gen Z and Gen Z, what you know, they're asking, yes, today it's a little bit tougher because you've got AI and you know, layoffs and things like that. But Gen Z wants to bring their values to work. They want to contribute to the company's growth. They want the company to grow in an appropriate way. So authenticity needs to ring true for the younger generation. It needs to ring true for the leadership. It needs to ring true with the volunteerism. It needs to ring true. How are you measuring and reporting back? And also authenticity is, you know, we're not getting it all done. Well, we, we did, we made a mistake here and owning up to your mistake and moving it forward. And you know, if you just have a cross functional team, also if you have an advisory board, they're going to hold your feet to the fire, you know, if you had one like pnc. So authenticity is really, really critical in a world where anybody can get anything on the Internet and now look at AI and you're going to ask your agent, well, you know, I'd like to invest money in a bank and I want them to do A, B and C. Are they doing it
Walt Rakowich:right? So Carol, I'm going to pivot back to you just a little bit before we kind of wrap up as, as you reflect on your journey, you know, is there a teacher or mentor teaching moment or something that kind of helped you shape also the way you think about purpose?
Carol Cohn:Well, I would say that there's usually more than one, but my heart belongs to Paul Pullman. And Paul Pullman was the CEO of, I mean, he is the OG of social impact and stakeholder capitalism and making the world better. And he was the CEO at Unilever, as I said, for 10 years. And he created the umbrella called the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. And he wrote a fabulous book called Annette Positive, which if anyone's interested in this topic, they should read. There's also another book called Tomorrow's Capitalist by Alan Murray, formerly from Fortune and now from the Wall Street Journal Institute. Really great books that talk about businesses and how engaging with society and the environment, making the world a better place, simply can support the growth of a business. And Paul, I got to meet him when I got to work on Vaseline and the Dove here and the Dove product. And he is, when he's with you, he's just so sincere and he is on so many boards. He is the most generous person of his time, of his intellect, but he's very humble. And so he is the one. It's funny, sometimes I get an email, I get emails from him, and he answers my emails really quickly. And I've had him on the podcast a few times and he's just fantastic. And so he's the one that really, I think that I look up to and I'm always inspired by. But I also have to say that the CEOs that I worked with early on, Bruce Cates from Rockport and Paul Fireman from Reebok and Jim Rohr from PNC and Jim Preston from Avon and then Dan Amos from Aflac. And I have to, I hope you don't mind, I got to tell the duck story. And over my, you can see in the background there's three little ducks. And you know, once upon a time, it wasn't that long ago, it was like 2,016 and the head of marketing at Aflac. Aflac. Duck. The big duck. Aflac. Very funny. Gets our attention, everybody. It's like a 98% awareness. What there was zero awareness on was that they were donating over 100 almost today, over 150 million to pediatric cancer. They've actually got a cancer center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The two did not connect. And so he asked his head of marketing do something about it. Long story short, with my connection making superpower, I was with a friend who made social robots for kids with diseases. And we're having lunch, and he says, hey, Carol, what's going on? And I said, hey, I'm going to start working with Aflac. And then all of a sudden, boom, over my head, these two comets crashed into each other. The Aflac duck and a social robot. And what became is, over my head, these little guys, my special Aflac duck, he's a social or she social robot that we created for kids with cancer. Spent a year studying. What does a child need when they're going through 1,000 days or more of pediatric cancer? They're scared, they're sick, they can't talk, especially the young ones, the five, six, seven, eight year olds. This duck has one, they designed it. Two, he purrs, which I think is hysterical. He's got three motors in him. He also has. He goes quack, quack, quack, quack. But he also has emotions. And so you take these little discs that have emotions, the seven major emotions that a child has going through pediatric cancer, and you put it on his chest, and if. If the duck is sad and feeling sick, the green emoji, he goes, quack, quack, quack. And the child may be asked by the nurse or so how do you feel? And so they have the duck, and the duck speaks for them, but the child's gone through okay, they're feeling better, things are going great. So the nurse says, how are you feeling? They take the happy emoji, and the duck goes. And so this duck, Affleck and Dan Amos, the CEO, so he gave me again a lot of that inspiration, he said, when we presented it with my friend Aaron Horowitz, who was head of the company that created the duck at the time was called Sproutelle, Dan Amos said it was the best idea he had ever heard because it took his wonderful big Aflac duck and his beautiful cancer commitment brought them together to help children. They have donated over 40,000 of these little ducks at no cost to children across the country. Also in Ireland, where they manufacture, and also in Japan, where they do business. And so children are feeling better, they're getting better. They actually have research that having this comforting companion will help with the process of healing. And I will tell you, when we introduced it at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, we won two best in shows. We beat the phones, we beat the cars, we beat the refrigerators. We had 2 billion impressions in the media and. And their. And their stock price Actually for three days rose impacting on this. But there was like a 90% awareness of this through just media relations alone, publicity and that people said that they would consider buying an Aflac product because they knew about this.
Walt Rakowich:That's amazing. Well, don't be surprised if my team and I don't write a blog about that. That's just. That is really an amazing story.
Carol Cohn:It is amazing. And it's one of, you know, people always ask me like, what's my favorite, you know, program and initiative. And yeah, I can't say one. But I would say that certainly PNC and Rockport and Aflac were among the top.
Walt Rakowich:Well, and everybody knows about that Aflac duck.
Carol Cohn:Let's face it, I do the big duck.
Walt Rakowich:Now I think about the Aflac duck in a different way.
Carol Cohn:Thank you.
Walt Rakowich:That's really neat.
Carol Cohn:And if any of your listeners know of a child going through pediatric cancer, they can go on the website, it's Aflac Cancer Connection and they can order a duck for free. So it's either they can get it directly or they can get it through a hospital.
Walt Rakowich:Thank you. So one last question as you reflect on your journey and it's been a h*** of a journey.
Carol Cohn:Thank you.
Walt Rakowich:What advice would you give to an emerging leader or somebody who's running a business today as they think about their organization?
Carol Cohn:What is your purpose? What do you stand for? What do you deeply stand for? And no matter. And it can be, you know, you can be a new CEO, a CEO in waiting. You can be a middle. It's tougher with middle managers because they've got to push it up through the infrastructure. Y but it's finding that essence, that soul. Because you know, I always say, does. Do your employees really wake up in the morning and say, I want to make money for the company? Of course they do. But they want to advance their career. They want to feel at the end of the day satisfied that they've contributed something. You've heard this so many times. You want to help contribute to something greater than yourself. And by having a purpose, what does the company stand for? And then activating it and allowing your employees to give you ideas, to volunteer with their time. They may want to donate money to bring in other partners, to bring in your customers. You can have a totally different relationship with your customers. And it's not just dollars. I mean, the amount of money that's put into advertising. We always do a blog around super bowl and we always say, for the cost of a 30 second spot, what could you do with the cause? And you could do a lot. You could start with 2 million, you could go to 5 million and whatever, you can do a lot. And if it's aligned with your business, if it's going to provide inspiration, belonging and meaning, it's a win win. Because we all have a lot of choice. We have a lot of choice. If you're in the B2B world or the B2C world, or who you work for or who you advocate for, or God forbid, you got a crisis, if you did something bad, everybody does something bad happens. But if you've built up the Goodwill bank, which is something that McDonald's, that was a phrase that they, that Ray Kroc created, the Goodwill bank, if you build it up, you're always going to need to draw from it if you do it authentically. And so my advice again to the emerging leaders, this is the first thing you should do before you even get the role and then roll it out. When you talk about, here's my vision for the company, here's the next five years, in the 10 years, this is also what we're going to stand for. We're going to contribute to and do it in a deep way, like PNC, like Aflac, like Rockport and Reebok, long, 10, 20, 30, 40 years ongoing. And if you can build it into your product mix, that's even better. That's my advice.
Walt Rakowich:I love that. Hey, Carol, I just want to thank you so much for joining me on this episode. You know, you're doing something greater than yourself just by being on these kinds of shows and, you know, getting out there and beating the drum, talking about this and you've been doing it for years and years and years. And I just want to congratulate you. I want to say thank you for what you do and I'm grateful to you for being on here today. And so, God, it's been great to have you.
Carol Cohn:Well, thanks for having me. I did a little bit of, you know, maybe a little long winded. I apologize. But you can see I'm so excited. And everybody says like, well, are you going to retire? And I go, no, I'm not going to retire. I'm going to make sure that my knowledge is constantly transferred to the next generation and the next generation. And go to our website, it's carolconeonpurpose.com we've got tons of resources. We've got videos, we've got blogs, we've got research. I didn't even talk about my 30 pieces of research to help you feel that you've got the data. When you go to your CEO or the CEO makes it to his board or her board. This truly helps to grow the business and makes it resilient and makes us
Walt Rakowich:to be beloved well, I agree with everything you've said and I thank you again for being on and I'd just like to thank everybody also who tuned in today. You can always find more insights from our guests in off the Rak plus news in our off the Rak plus newsletter and we've got episodes and highlights and transcripts and helpful takeaways, all those kinds of things. And follow off the Rak on your favorite podcast platform. Leave a Review Share this episode with anybody, somebody who needs a little purpose filled inspiration. And until next time, I'm just going to encourage all of you to be human with one another and find a way to have a positive influence on somebody around you each and every day. Thank you and thank you again, Carol. Awesome to have you on.
Carol Cohn:No, thank you Walt. It was a pleasure. It was fun.
Walt Rakowich:Sa.