Carol Cone:
I'm Carol Cone, and welcome to Purpose 360, the podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact.
Wow. Who's in the studio with me today? I mean, sometimes we have some special guests, but... My God, it's some singing ducks. Well, it's not just some ducks. It's My Special Aflac Duck, and they are so excited to join me today to tell their story, how they were birthed, how they gained tremendous prominence, and so exciting that they're in the arms of 30,000 children free of charge in the United States, in Japan, as well as in Northern Ireland. So are we ready to get started, guys? What do you think? They're quiet now, so I think we should get started.
And this conversation today with Jon Sullivan, director of corporate communications at Aflac, and Buffy Swinehart, senior manager of corporate social responsibility to Aflac is going to be very special because companies come to us or to others and say, "Well, we want a great idea, and I want to do something that's purposeful and it's going to really impact my stakeholders." But they usually don't do well in the activation. They do something that is just really short term. They do a big launch and then it fades away.
Well, today's conversation is going to be about longevity, and it's going to be at the heart of longevity is authenticity. Jon and Buffy, welcome to the show.
Jon Sullivan:
Thanks, Carol.
Buffy Swinehart:
Thank you so much, Carol.
Carol Cone:
So, let's just start a little bit about who you are. Jon, we'll start with you.
Jon Sullivan:
Sure. Well, first let me say, Carol, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you here, and it feels like a reunion of sorts, and especially in talking about My Special Aflac Duck, being that you are on the ground floor in the creation of the duck and a vital component of what's made it such a successful program, not only for Aflac in terms of promotions and PR, but the real benefit, which is seeing the smiles on kids' faces when they get one of these ducks.
In terms of introducing myself, I've been at Aflac for 16 years. I'm director of corporate communications, which basically means I get to do a lot of fun things like talk about insurance products. That just excites everybody. So when I talk about this program, My Special Aflac Duck, which we'll get into, I'm sure, I talk about it in terms of being the best part of my job.
And so, in terms of background, I don't think it would be terribly exciting for your listeners, but I was a spokesperson in the George Pataki administration when he was governor of New York, and prior to that I was director of corporate communications for the New York State Assembly. And then prior to that, I was a newsperson. I cut my teeth in the news business, of the TV news business in Buffalo, New York where I worked for roughly six or seven years as an assignment editor/producer type position.
Carol Cone:
Buffy, share with us your background a bit. Sure. And I want to echo Jon's remarks. Carol, we wouldn't have My Special Aflac Duck without you. You brought the idea to our company and we're so grateful for you and for this wonderful program. And it's honestly, I agree with Jon, it's my favorite part of my job. I've been with Aflac for 22 years, always in this role of overseeing our corporate social responsibility, which includes donations and volunteerism and our focus on pediatric cancer and blood disorders.
My background is also varied. I'm an elementary ed major, so I like to say that helps me work with both children and adults sometimes. But I also have a personal passion and connection to the cause, which I think is important. I'm actually married to a cancer survivor. He was diagnosed very young, in his 20s, and is doing great now, has been in remission for many years. But I think I also feel blessed, as the word Jon used, that I'm able to tenet kind of my personal passion and marry that with what I get to do for a living, which is helping children with cancer and blood disorders.
Carol Cone:
That's terrific. Thank you. Thank you for those kind remarks, by the way. Let's just talk about how MSAD, My Special Aflac Duck. And so, if one of you can talk about the origin story, and then we can talk about the birthing of the idea of MSAD.
Buffy Swinehart:
And you add in anything I might forget. So we made outreach to you, Carol, because as I said earlier, we wanted to take what we were doing in the pediatric cancer and blood disorders space. Our relationship with the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center began back in 1995, and to date, we've given over $182 million to that cause.
But we were getting, and Jon can probably chime in here and will agree, we were not getting much outside of Georgia, which is where Aflac is headquartered. So we really wanted to do something on a national basis.
And Carol had, in a previous conference, I guess it was, and Carol, you might be able to add more here, but had met with a company at the time that was called Sproutel, and they were in a competition and actually won the competition with a bear that they had created for children with diabetes. And so Carol, you have this amazing idea of, hey, what if we partnered with this group who creates toys for children with diseases, and we take your mascot, the duck, and we marry that with your cause, and we work with these experts in the field to create something tangible that will have this kind of national reach that we're looking for?
Carol Cone:
Jon, I want you to, when we talked about that idea, because you are, by your training, you're a skeptic, and so you probably don't remember some of those meetings, but I think it's really important for our listeners, because the biggest of ideas are sometimes hard to sell in.
Jon Sullivan:
Well, and you hit it on the head. I mean, my role at the company is PR. That is probably my most basic function here, is public relations. So you're trained to poke holes in things to make sure that what you find with the final product is what it is you're opening it's going to be.
Are we going to be able... Well, first of all, are the children going to love it as much as we hope they're going to love it? Secondly, is this going to be a successful PR campaign? Because to any purpose-driven campaign, there's also a business aspect to it. And how does it align with Aflac's culture? How does it align with our mission? Why are we doing this duck that is helping children with cancer?
But once we got past all of that, it became fairly apparent that we had struck upon something. And I know I'm heading off at the pass, probably one of your next questions, but when we first introduced My Special Aflac Duck in 2018, and you remember this, Carol, because I asked you to come and join us and help us with all of the unveiling, we did so at the Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas.
And look, we knew we had something nice. We knew we had something that was going to garner some attention. Carol, I think even you would admit, having done this for a while, and me having done this for a while, it was beyond our wildest expectations, particularly that one evening, as you recall, where, as a PR person, this is a dream, where I actually had to tell a reporter from the USA today, "Hey, can you give me a few minutes? I have to go talk to CBS."
So it kind of exploded on the scene in such a positive way, and I think it was then where we all looked at each other and said, "You know what? This is more than just your average campaign. This is going to be pretty impressive."
Carol Cone:
Yes, about two billion impressions within a week or so. But I want to take that... There was a lot of thought going into, one, building the duck and then even backing it up. Dan Amos, your CEO had to approve it because there was some significant investment in this. So let's describe the duck
Buffy Swinehart:
My Special Aflac Duck is a robotic companion for children with cancer and blood disorders. And he's soft on the outside, fuzzy, but on the inside, he's got a lot of technology that allows him to do the things he can do. So we did 18 months of research with doctors and families at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
And so, one of the first things we learned through the research that Sproutel at the time did was that children need a better way of expressing to their caregivers their emotions and how they're feeling. And so, one of the really cool things that the duck can do is mimic different emoji coins that you tap to the duck's chest and he'll act out the emotions.
So some of my favorites are calm, where the duck will take deep breaths with the child, and you can imagine them preparing for a procedure. Silly is a really fun one. So the duck has sensors all along its back, under its wings, and so it responds to touch. And so, when it's silly, it will actually, you can tickle your duck and it'll respond. It will nuzzle. It has light sensors, so when lights are high, it's a little bit louder, lights are low, a little bit softer. I always love to tell parents, it has a mute button, so when they get a little bit tired of hearing from their duck, they can mute it. The fur on it is machine washable.
It also comes with a lot of medical accessories, and the learning there was that children need to feel more in control of what's going on in a situation that, quite frankly, feels very out of control. So if they can practice some of those medical procedures on their duck that they themselves will have to go through, like a chemo port, and the duck will go into a soothing heartbeat, or things like taking the duck's temperature, giving the duck a shot.
And then the last feature that I really love is it comes with a rocket ship. When you tap that to the duck's chest, it actually basically turns the duck into a sound machine. And that kind of goes back to that learning you mentioned earlier, Carol, about kids can spend up to a thousand days in the hospital. And so, hospitals are noisy places with lots of distractions and interruptions. And so, we felt like by doing these soothing soundscapes, their duck essentially can play their favorite soothing sounds that will help drown out some of that noise, help them relax, help with distraction.
And so, those were some of the key learnings we got from that 18 months of research that we built into the duck. But to your question about presenting to Dan, I'm glad you asked that, because that was nerve-wracking.
Carol Cone:
It was nerve-wracking.
Buffy Swinehart:
So we presented, how many ideas was it, Carol? At least three.
Carol Cone:
Mm-hmm.
Buffy Swinehart:
But this one was our favorite, for sure. We presented My Special Aflac Duck concept out of the chute, and then the other two or other helpful ideas, but not quite as exciting. And he immediately loved the idea, said it was the best idea he had seen since the creation of the Aflac duck for our marketing campaign.
And Carol, I don't know if I told you this, but later on that day, he called me and he said, "You feel like this is a really good idea, right?" And I said, "I do." And I, like you said, I was nervous, because you're kind of staking your reputation on it. But like Jon said, once we launched it at CES, we knew we were on to something. But there was definitely some risk at the beginning, and we were nervous. We wanted this to be successful.
Jon Sullivan:
I've done countless interviews, media interviews with Dan where My Special Aflac Duck was discussed, and I've heard him say multiple times that there are three things in his career where he knew right away that this could be impact.
One being the Aflac duck itself, which wasn't without risk, but he knew it could be impactful. Expanding in Japan, expanding our business in Japan, which is now, the bulk of the revenue that Aflac receives comes from Japan. And then there's My Special Aflac Duck, where he views that as one of the three things that he believed and believed right when he heard of the idea that this could be impactful.
Carol Cone:
That's great. And then, one of the things, and this is a really key point for our listeners, CES or some other place you want to introduce, they have awards that you could apply for before CES, because they have 5,000 media, 200,000 people that attend, and a gazillion, from new cars to new phones to refrigerators and anything else that's technology-oriented.
And they had hundreds of entries, and we won. And having that credibility before we went to the show... Because when you look at this little duck, he looks like a toy. So we had the credibility with the award, we had the duck, and then we swarmed all over at CES and we did not let any moment drop that we could not introduce him to somebody.
So what I'd like to do now is just talk about, and then we went to Cannes and applied, and I mean, he won basically every award around the globe, which was amazing. He went to Cannes Lions, and he won South by Southwest People's Choice. We were having a lot of fun with the awards. But the most important thing was how you introduced him to parents and families and cancer hospitals and kids.
So can you talk about the initial rollouts?
Buffy Swinehart:
First and foremost, you kind of mentioned, the awards were amazing, but nothing, and Jon said this too, nothing more rewarding to us is when the child's face lights up when they receive one of the ducks. And so, these duck delivery events, first and foremost, are very kid-friendly and kid-focused, and they start with kind of the demonstration.
But then we have a really kid-friendly scavenger hunt where they go throughout the hospital looking for clues, and at the very end they get their own My Special Aflac Duck. And then we kind of have a celebration where they fill out a birth certificate and they name their duck, they create a beaded necklace for their duck, and we celebrate that with them.
Carol Cone:
So Jon, what was it like when you went to media in a local market with such authenticity of your commitment?
Jon Sullivan:
We're doing these events, we defer to the hospitals, because the primary goal, once the event starts, Carol, the primary goal is to make sure kids are smiling, make sure kids are happy. Not just the kids though, but also the parents. And that's something we could talk about a little bit again when we talk about the recent study that we've done. So that's mission number one.
Now, of course there's lead up to that. When we do these things, we tend to invite media there to get local media coverage. And one of the strategies that we've used throughout this campaign, and this will speak a little bit to your concept of longevity, is how we have promoted the duck existential to doing duck delivery events, but duck delivery events are a part of it, where we've approached it through a macro and a micro approach to be doing PR, if you will, where we're definitely doing media outreach, whether it be at duck delivery events or whether it be aside from duck delivery events. But we're also very, very careful in building the relationship with the hospitals and with the associations that we work with.
Carol Cone:
You're sensitive. You're very sensitive. The other thing that you guys did was that you're giving the duck away for free. And that was a very thoughtful decision. You didn't want to charge, you didn't want to do cause marketing, fundraising, and you have given to date over, this is amazing, 30,000 of these little guys and gals, whatever you want to call them. And so, that's critical to the authenticity and the longevity.
Jon Sullivan:
And there was discussion about should we fundraise for it so that the community would've some skin of the game, and things of that nature.
And then it was just determined that if we're going to do cause marketing, then we need to put the skin in the game. We need to do more than just lend the name of our company to our duck. And I'm so, I'm proud, like you said, 30,000, and you're talking about $200 to $250 a duck. So people listening can do the math, but Aflac has definitely put skin in the game in addition to putting its brand into it.
Carol Cone:
So you've introduced the duck, you've been at CES, you've gotten 2 billion impressions and such. You're winning all these awards, and you're doing your duck deliveries. It is now five years since you have been delivering him in the marketplace. You made a decision to create a sickle cell duck. Where did that idea come from, and was it hard to sell in, and why is it important that you're doing it?
Jon Sullivan:
I don't think it was a difficult sell, because our primary philanthropic cause is the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center in Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. And so, our focus has always been not just pediatric cancer, but certain blood disorders, and our facility in Atlanta boasts the largest pediatric sickle cell program in the nation. Carol, this was also in a time, from a PR perspective, where a lot of focus was on the African-American community. We'd have done it anyway, but the timing happened to be good as well.
Carol Cone:
But I also want to give you a lot of kudos, because you have a very, very, very diverse culture.
Jon Sullivan:
We do.
Carol Cone:
So this wasn't like, oh, we're going to put a Band-Aid on it because George Floyd and what's happening. This was a natural evolution of who you are. So you're now innovating, but you're innovating with total authenticity. You've got, it's my understanding, you've got a board of advisors of all sorts of... You always had them, in terms of medical professionals, child life professionals. What were other innovations that you have added to My Special Aflac Duck?
Buffy Swinehart:
One of the big innovations right after we did the sickle cell version and we created a direct to family distribution, and we actually did that mainly for the sickle cell population, because we learned that unlike the cancer population, they don't go to the hospital unless they're in a pain crisis, and that's probably not the best time to give them My Special Aflac Duck.
So we wanted to create an avenue for them to be able to reach out and order a duck and have it shipped to their house. But they'll get 30 minutes with a child life specialist, and the specialist will walk them through how to use the duck before they even send it to them. So that's been an innovation that I'm really proud of, and it's helped reach more kids, which is our goal, is any child above the age of three with cancer or blood disorder, we want them to have a duck.
Carol Cone:
The generosity of this program is just extraordinary. So Jon and Buffy, can you talk about when you finally said we got to have this research, what was kind of the breadth of the research, and what it has done to the added, added credibility of My Special Aflac Duck?
Jon Sullivan:
Now intuitively, we look at kids with the duck and we know they love it and they're enjoying it, but intuition and data are two separate things. So we decided that, and I want to say Buffy, I want to share the credit, because I think it was you and me, decided let's do a study. Let's literally do a study. And we went to Dan and we said, "You know, Dan, this is going to cost a few dollars." And he said, "Well, let's do it. Let's do it anyway."
And all we did, Carol was fund it. All we did was fund the research. And I guess the way to sum it up, Carol, is that the results showed that the duck is doing what we hoped it would do. Significant reductions in stress and anxiety, pre-procedures, that children were going through, and post-procedures, for what they might be going through.
But we found another interesting nugget through this study, which even put another big smile on our face, and that was that parents were saying, "We are feeling less stress. We are feeling less anxiety," because they're watching their children smile, and knowing that it's helping their children communicate better, it's helping them feel less lonely.
These were the stated goals, and you were on the ground floor with this, Carol. Those were the stated goals of My Special Aflac Duck. And what this did is, it providing us with the data where now we feel very comfortable saying, My Special Aflac Duck is a tool that helps reduce stress for children going through cancer or sickle cell.
Carol Cone:
Great. Okay, so now I want both of you to tell some brief stories about any interaction you had with a parent and a child at a duck delivery, or a letter that was sent to you, or an email.
Buffy Swinehart:
So it was in New Orleans, and we were doing our duck delivery event. This one was specific to sickle cell patients only. So I'm doing my demonstration up front, and this adorable little boy, just unprompted, didn't ask him to, just comes up front and starts helping me demonstrate the duck, and the smile on his face. He stole the show, as he should have. But I mean, he's one memory.
The other one I was thinking of, Carol, and you'll remember this one, when launched at CES, we actually created a video of many of our patients that we kind of used as kind of like the Guinea pigs to say, "Do you like the duck? Do you want the duck to do this? Do you want it to do that?" And there was this one little boy named Eli, and he was having his port accessed, which is a very painful procedure, and he was actually kind of crying out. And it's uncomfortable to watch.
But then we showed him how My Special Aflac Duck had a port just like him, and he immediately switched and said, "Can I try?" So he went from screaming to, "Can I try?" And I mean, that's what we want. At the end of the day. That's what we want. Anything we can do to make these kids' journey a little bit easier, that's what we're here for.
Jon Sullivan:
Yeah, I remember that, Buffy, and I remember some people maybe wanted to take it out of the video, and I remember you and I saying, "No, no. Yeah, it was uncomfortable to watch, but that's what the duck is for. It's for that moment right there."
And we've had multiple situations where we have done work with families, or we've given them a duck, and it not only was appreciated by them, but it inspired them to want to come and work for Aflac. Shea Guillory is the mother of twins, one of whom was born with sickle cell and the other was not. And we had given them the first My Special Aflac Ducks for Sickle Cell. They were the first recipients.
And the long story short, Shea now works for Aflac. She was so inspired by it. She's in our new product development team. And it was all because of My Special Aflac Duck program. There's another similar example for a gentleman out in our Aflac group insurance headquarters in Columbia, South Carolina, who had a very similar experience and works for Aflac now because of our work with Childhood Cancer.
Carol Cone:
Those are great stories, and we can go on and on. With all the discussion we've made here today, what advice do you have for colleagues in companies who they always say, "I want the big idea. I want to promote my brand, but I know it's got to be authentic."
Buffy Swinehart:
I would say first piece of advice, and you kind of hit on it with the authenticity comment, but I think you've got to link it to your business. And you said that earlier, but the fact that Aflac was founded on a cancer product, and that our philanthropy for many years focused on pediatric cancer, it was easy to make sure that... It's not easy, but it's important to make sure that whatever you're doing from a purpose standpoint aligns with your business. That would be my number one.
Carol Cone:
Okay, Jon, number two.
Jon Sullivan:
Well, I think we touched upon this before. You have to poke holes in things to make sure, because of exactly what you just said, Carol, which is in the social media world, this could be wonderful or this could be not so good, depending on how you do it. In fact, it's kind of a funny anecdote. Buffy and I have worked together for 16 years, and I think the only time we ever had a harsh word with each other is when I was poking holes. And I felt like I was being attacked by a mama bear protecting her cubs, and she wanted to make sure that I understood. Which I did understand, but my job is to poke holes.
So for my colleagues out there, Buffy's advice is spot on. Make it relevant to your core mission of your business, but also, dot your I's and cross your T's. And that includes sometimes saying something that another person may not appreciate, but you got to put it out there. Because what happened is, through that discussion, Buffy and I, Buffy was able to convince me that the hole I was trying to poke was impenetrable. It's good. It's when I'm not going to poke that hole. But I still needed to ask those questions.
Carol Cone:
Ask the tough questions. Okay, Buffy, number three.
Buffy Swinehart:
Three, I would say, make sure you select partners that share a common mission. And so, everyone from you, Carol, to Sproutel, Empath Labs, to Children's Miracle network. Everyone that we evaluate and bringing into the fold and working on this program, we have to make sure that they align with our mission. And it's also important not to think you have to do it alone. So partnership is important. If we tried to do all this ourselves, we would have failed. So getting those right partners involved is important.
Carol Cone:
Great. Jon, number four.
Jon Sullivan:
Yeah. Second cousin of what Buffy just said, it's culture matters. Culture, and not just your culture, but the culture of who you're working with. And if I sound redundant, I apologize, but I just want to put a focus on this. Without Aaron Horowitz, who heads up Empath Labs, formerly Sproutel. Without Aaron Horowitz, there's no deal here. It wasn't going to happen. Not only because of his incredible intellect, but because his culture and his, he cares. He cares so much about the work that he's doing and the kids that he's impacting.
Carol Cone:
True, true, true. Can we get some more? Buffy, another insight that you want to share?
Buffy Swinehart:
I was just thinking the importance of communicating to all different parties. So in other words, we made sure we had blessing from the top, but then we also reached out and formed employee groups, agent groups. We brought in all the constituents and we made sure we were communicating this program to them and got their input. So I think that communication within your different constituency groups is key.
Carol Cone:
Yeah. Another great idea.
Jon Sullivan:
Well, let me speak to your listeners who are specifically in the PR and industry, and I'll tell them that a program like this does not have the utility that it ought to have unless you are doing PR planning around it. Otherwise, it's just a really nice thing that we're doing for children with cancer. And we want that to be the focus, but you also, from a PR perspective, you want it to positively impact the reputation of your company.
We use a source called RepTrack, I think you referenced before, and one of the seven dimensions of reputation that they measure is citizenship. And we want to positively impact our reputation along those lines, because we firmly believe that, and Dan Amos says this all the time when he is asked, what does it really matter to do a program like this? And he'll say that all other things being equal, if a person is considering your products over a competitor's products, they're more likely to want to go to the company that gives 30,000 My Special Aflac Ducks to children with cancer and sickle cell. So you could argue whether that's the primary reason for it, but it's certainly, if not, it's a secondary reason. Purpose has a purpose in the business world.
Carol Cone:
I love that. Thank you. So Jon, I just want to ask a separate question, not really related to this, but I ask all my guests, and Buffy, you could jump in here too. What is the role of purpose in an AI-driven world?
Jon Sullivan:
Yeah, I think, absolutely. I mean AI is a conduit, right? It's not the program, it's a conduit. It's a messaging vehicle. I think honestly what it may do is make it more challenging to maintain our authenticity, particularly if there's somebody that wants to use AI in a way that we would prefer they didn't want to use it.
Buffy Swinehart:
Yeah, I would just say, AI isn't going to replace the heart, and I think that's what the focus is.
Carol Cone:
Super. I always like to give listeners the last chance to add anything that they want to do or share.
Jon Sullivan:
There's something about working for a company that gets it. Working for a company and for A CEO who understands the value both internally and externally for doing a program like My Special Aflac Duck. In fact, in the next couple of weeks, Buffy would probably know the date, we're going to be putting My Special Aflac Duck on display for our employees, because they just love to see the impact that this could have. So I would say that, I used this term before, but I'll say it again. I'm blessed to work at a company that prioritizes this sort of thing and allows me the honor and the privilege of seeing a young child with cancer or a sickle cell, put a smile on his or face.
Carol Cone:
That's beautiful. Buffy, you get the last word.
Buffy Swinehart:
I'm going to piggyback on what Jon just said. If you can find a job where you're able to marry your personal passions and bring purpose to the organization that you work in, you are blessed, indeed. And then, that's what I've been able to do at Aflac, and I'm so very grateful. And I would say to your listeners, you can bring purpose wherever you are, wherever you sit in the organization. You don't have to have corporate social responsibility in your title. I mean, Jon just gave an example. He's PR, but he's found a way to bring purpose to what he does every day at work, and I would say anyone can do that.
Carol Cone:
That's terrific. So I'll give something for our listeners. Being highly strategic. This isn't just about the heart part. And you said this Buffy, it's about the business and understanding, what does the business need? What are our values and our behaviors? And what is important to our stakeholders? And then bringing that all together in a highly strategic way. So it's the head and the heart. So thank you, Jon. Thank you, Buffy.
Jon Sullivan:
Thanks, Carol.
Buffy Swinehart:
Thank you, Carol.
Carol Cone:
This podcast was brought to you by some amazing people, and I'd love to thank them. Anne Hundertmark and Kristin Kenney at Carol Cone on Purpose, Pete Wright and Andy Nelson, our crack production team at True Story FM, and you, our listener. Please rate and rank us, because we really want to be as high as possible, as one of the top business podcasts available, so that we can continue exploring together the importance and the activation of authentic purpose. Thanks so much for listening.
This transcript was exported on Jun 11, 2024 - view latest version here.
p360_179 Aflac RAW (Completed 06/11/24)
Transcript by Rev.com
Page 1 of 2