Creature Comfort
My Special Aflac Duck flies high as a friend to kids with cancer
Few moments in life are more heart-wrenching than a child being diagnosed with cancer. In the U.S. every year, some 15,000 kids and their families are given the tragic news, according to the National Cancer Institute. For many, it is only the beginning of a long, frightening journey, involving jarring treatments that, on average, last 1,000 days and offer no guarantees of success.
For a quarter century, the American insurance provider Aflac has been contributing to the treatment and research of childhood cancer, raising more than $134 million. Aflac aspired to lend more than just a helping hand via its generous record of charitable giving; it sought to create a tender hand-hold, literally, to those in greatest need.
Aflac’s “My Special Aflac Duck” campaign is hailed by many as an exemplar of how a company can leverage brand strength — and the personality of a venerable icon — to reach the highest level of social altruism. The centerpiece of the campaign, an extension of Aflac’s ongoing “Childhood Cancer” initiative, is a comfort toy called “My Special Aflac Duck,” (MSAD) and it is no typical stuffed animal.
Get ANA Marketers’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The cuddly “robotic companion,” a specially engineered spinoff of Aflac’s famous fowl mascot, is designed for kids ages 3 and older as they embark upon the harrowing process of cancer treatment. Not only does the duck quack, but it also purrs similar to a kitten when petted, is sensitive to lightness and darkness, can be bathed and fed virtually, expresses feelings that reflect a child’s moods, and even has its own port for chemotherapy.
So innovative is its interactive components that Time touted My Special Aflac Duck as one of the best inventions of the year.
The My Special Aflac Duck campaign, winner of the ANA Center for Brand Purpose Gold Award at the 2019 REGGIE Awards, is the result of a multiyear collaboration, says Jon Sullivan, director of corporate communications at Aflac. It involves the company’s own in-house creative teams; Sproutel, a patient-based R&D shop that designs products for kids coping with serious illness; and consultant Carol Cone, a pioneer in helping companies explore ways of achieving more meaningful social purpose in their brands.
“We’re not only a company that began as a cancer insurance provider, we’re a company that pledges to be there for policy holders in their darkest hours, whether injured or sick,” Sullivan says. “I can’t think of a greater time of need than when a child has cancer.”
Aflac’s involvement with pediatric cancer, he notes, dates back to 1995 when a woman who worked at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center in Atlanta asked if Aflac would contribute $25,000 to help renovate a floor where patients were being treated.
Continue reading this story on ANA Newsstand…
