One For One

Each week my Public Relation Campaigns class blogs about a topic in PR, and this week I have one of my classmates to thank for my inspiration for this blog. Lauren blogged about Corporate Social Responsibility this week and after reading her post I knew exactly what I was going to blog about!

Team LASC (my Campaigns class) knows how much I love TOMS Shoes and I can't believe I have yet to blog about this company! The TOMS Shoes website sums up their mission with this statement "TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we're all about." For every pair of shoes you buy, they give a pair to a child in need. Talk about corporate social responsibility! Since TOMS was started in 2006, they have given away more than 140,000 pairs of shoes.

TOMS Shoes uses many different media outlets to get their name out and has been featured in several magazines and newspapers such as Vogue, People, Time, and Rolling Stones. When TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie was featured in an AT&T commercial, The New York Times wrote an article on the impact this one 30 second commercial had on the company (check out the article here!) When the commercial premiered during the telecast of The Masters this year, it created a lot of exposure for the company and got people tweeting and commenting on YouTube. The feedback from the 30 second commercial led to AT&T expanding the spot to 60 seconds. TOMS Shoes was also the first real business to be featured in an AT&T commercial showcasing the theme "more bars, more places" as it followed Blake on shoe drops around the world. In the few months after the commercial aired, the TOMS website went from having 9,000 visitors a day to upwards of 90,000 visitors in one day! Woah! TOMS Shoes is on Twitter and has recently added Twitter pages for shoe support and friends of TOMS, which keeps you updated on shoe drops and other events happening with the company. TOMS has also collaborated with several celebrities, such as Dave Matthews and Brandon Boyd, to create limited edition styles.

Check out TOMS and see for yourself how one company is making a difference all around the world.