Yoplait Extends ‘Save Lids to Save Lives’

General Mills is gearing up for Yoplait’s iconic Save Lids to Save Lives program with stepped-up support from top retailers and, for the first time, sorority girls and golfers.

The campaign, entering its ninth year, encourages consumers to mail in pink lids from Yoplait yogurt cartons to trigger a 10-cent donation per lid to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. General Mills will donate at least $500,000 and up to $1.5 million.

This year, some retailers add their own donations to their local Komen chapters. Retailers can get customized P-O-P (or use Mills’ national P-O-P). Tagged TV spots, shelf tags (via NewsAmerica), an FSI and online ads support.

General Mills also struck a deal with national sorority ZTA to collect pink Yoplait lids on 150-plus college campuses. A separate deal with Golf for Women magazine puts collection bins at hundreds of Rally for a Cure golf events.

A third extension, executed via the campaign’s dedicated Web site, SavePinkLids.com, lets corporations sign up for a pink lid collection kit for employees to donate lids at work.

Meanwhile, foodservice operators get merchandising kits from General Mills Bakeries & Foodservice division, with collection boxes and shelf danglers encouraging diners to donate lids from their restaurant and cafeteria meals.

In a related campaign, General Mills’ Country Hearth bread brand adds its own fund-raising overlay this year after testing an extension of Save Lids to Save Lives last fall. The bread brand will run “The Power of Pink” to support breast-cancer awareness. Last year, Country Hearth piggybacked Save Lids to Save Lives with an on-pack “pink lid” on loaves sold in major markets in Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin to trigger donations to the Komen Foundation.

This is the ninth year that Yoplait will run the fund-raising affinity campaign in September and October, timed to Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October). Minneapolis-based General Mills will ship pink-lidded cartons through October, and redeem lids through December.

Four agencies collaborate on the campaign: PowerPact, Midlothian, VA; Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis Dialog, both New York; and Cone Public Relations, Boston.

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