Lessons from Movember: How to Motivate Millennial Men with Cause Marketing

Men across America are chucking their razors during the month of November, but it's more than just a fashion statement, it's a declaration in support of men's health. Movember is now firmly established as a cause marketing effort with "oomph," and is turning heads as it targets one of the most overlooked segments of shoppers: Millennial men.

Yet, Millennial men can be fickle to engage. They are one of the most likely groups to tune out cause marketing messages and are more likely to punish brands that do it wrong. So how can organizations successfully engage this segment to action? Findings from the 2015 Cone Communications Millennial CSR Study reveal that when it comes to engaging Millennials, a one-size-fits-all communications strategy just won't cut it – and Millennial men are no exception. Organizations looking to target the Millennial male with a cause message should keep these key insights in mind:

• Stick to the Hard Facts: Although storytelling can be an effective way to convey social or environmental messages, Millennial men are more motivated by facts and figures. This group prefers information on CSR efforts in the form of numbers and data related to impact over stories (30% vs. 18% Millennial female). The Movember Foundation provides data on the work it funds in the form of "report cards." Each report card gives essential information such as funding to date, project status, what organization or individual implemented the program and what has been accomplished so far.

• Entertain, While Educating: Millennial men view videos (36% vs. 34% Millennial female), games (28% vs. 24% Millennial female) and infographics (21% vs. 10% Millennial female) as effective ways to learn about CSR commitments, so it's important to make sure that content is fun and engaging in order to grab the attention of this audience. Movember Foundation tunes into these unique drivers through the "Run Mo Run" mobile game which includes in-app game purchases to support the Foundation and the Movember Radio weekly podcast, highlighting men's health issues in an informative and amusing way.

• Get Social: Like most Millennial segments, Millennial men are more likely than the average American to use social media to address or engage around social or environmental issues (62% vs. 53% U.S. average). Movember Foundation is tapping into Millennials' social nature by featuring Top "Mo Space" Fundraising Pages on the Foundation's website. To infuse an element of gamification, pages are ranked by the number of Facebook Likes and Tweets each gets – the more social a fundraising effort is, the higher the "Mo Space" is featured on the site.

• Involve Friends, Family and Networks: Over three-quarters of Millennial men said they would tell friends and family about social or environmental efforts, so programs should be built to make it easy to spread the word and get others involved. Movember Foundation created Industry Challenges so that participants could band together and compete against other teams in the same industry. Challenges include industries such as Agency, Gaming, Healthcare and Pharma. To inspire younger Millennial men to action, the Foundation also created challenges for MBAs and "Big Moustache on Campus."

Are you participating in Movember this month? Tell us what motivates you on Twitter using the hashtag #ConeCSR.

To read more about engaging Millennial men with cause marketing, read our full post on Triple Pundit.