A Big Moment for Small Brands
Earth Month is an incredible opportunity for small brands like Leaf Shave to accomplish a lot in a short period of time. It's a special moment because consumers are:
- Interested in issues affecting our environment
- Ready to listen more intently to eco-friendly brands telling their stories
- More inclined to make sustainable swaps
Our Earth Month Playbook
There are two strategic initiatives we develop each year leading up to Earth Month:
- We choose a non-profit to support
- We drop a limited edition color across our whole lineup
With the extra attention we'll be getting throughout the month, we can raise awareness and financial support for organizations doing good work. We want to support science-backed non-profits for the very serious reason that our world is in need of extra help; and for the very unserious reason that it’s fun for our team to do!
Work would be boring if we never had fun.
By dropping special edition colors, we can bring even more attention to our brand, and give people an extra incentive to make the swap.
These two initiatives require a lot of planning and preparation. And our marketing team begins the work months in advance, selecting and vetting potential non-profit partners, planning campaigns and communications, and developing content and visual assets for the limited edition color drop.
Limited Edition Colors
We're always listening to our community. And something that people love is fun, new colors. Making new colors is not always easy, and there are a lot of limitations on what can be produced with metal plating (for example, you’re never going to see a hot-pink color on our razors—you’ll only see those on plastic razors).
We work with our manufacturer ten to twelve months in advance to test potential color options, and we'll select one to put into production. These are the things we need to do in order to launch a new color:
- Backend inventory management, the boring stuff, like assigning SKUs (product numbers), barcodes, and naming conventions.
- Product photography, both e-commerce (the more sparse photography you see on product pages) and lifestyle or in-use photography (the more styled, typically model-driven shots).
- Packaging and artwork development, including special designs for the limited color ways.
- Fulfillment and operations preparation—our team has to make room for accommodating a new color way in our warehouse, and ensure that pick-pack and ship stations are ready.
- Social videos, email assets, wholesale / retail-partner preperation and communication, and more...
Selecting a Non-Profit
We want to educate, inspire, and support other folks doing good work. We select a nonprofit organization to support by looking for organizations that help to protect or restore our environment and the organisms that inhabit it. The kinds of initiatives we vet for include:
- Active science-based research programs
- Educational programs, especially those accessible to all age groups
- National or Global reach and scope
- Transparency around usage of funds
- ... and more!
When we sync up with a group that feels like a great fit, we make an organization-to-organization connection. We're looking for a single point of contact on their side willing to engage with us as we build campaigns around this initiative.
It’s important to us for their team to learn more about Leaf Shave’s brand and values to ensure we’re a good fit for them as well.
The organization’s team supports us by providing beautiful imagery to share with our community. We also look for educational resources for our own team to learn, and then to find creative ways to share those learnings with our audience. And we ensure there's an expert on their side who will make themselves available for an interview. We crowdsource questions from our team internally.
Josh Hydeman, Bat Conservation International
Our Favorite Month of the Year
As a marketing team, we LOVE digging into something new (and not-shaving-related) with our non-profit partners. We love building campaigns designed to educate our audience (and ourselves!) about the work they’re doing. And we’re proud to cut that check at the end of the month of financial support, driven by our community, and going directly to impacting our environment or ecology.
Some past successful Leaf Shave Earth Month initiatives include:
- Dropping the Prism color and supporting the Adaptation Fund in 2019
- Dropping the Berryblue color and supporting the Coral Restoration Foundation in 2021
- Dropping the Honey color and supporting the Pollinator Partnership in 2022
- Dropping the Berryblue color again and supporting the Pacific Whale Foundation in 2023
And this year, as you already know, we’re dropping limited edition Fig color for the 2nd time after it was such a fan favorite the first time, and we’re raising funds to support Bat Conservation International.
If you’re ready to make a swap, you can find all of our Limited Edition Fig products here. Happy Earth Month!
