In the lead up to its annual November men’s health campaign, the Movember Foundation has announced this year’s corporate sponsors.
Bryan Fautley, partnerships manager at the Movember Foundation, said the sponsorships help brands concerned with men’s health speak to its audience of about 50,000 to 100,000 men aged 20 to 55.
Moores Clothing for Men has signed on as the major Canadian partner for 2017. In addition to in-store activations focused on men’s health, the retailer is offering a free custom shirt to participants with the purchase of a suit and will be donating $100,000 to the cause.
The event’s supporting sponsors are Saxx, a men’s underwear brand; Microsoft’s gaming platform Xbox; and men’s socks retailer Babsocks. Its promotional sponsors are cosmetics brand Bite Beauty, wine brand Gentleman’s Collection, manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and travel organizer G Adventures.
Vancouver-based Saxx will leverage its Saxx Man campaign with live mannequins in Vancouver and Toronto, intended to interact with crowds and offer behind-the-scenes content on Instagram and Snapchat. It will also promote its co-branded Movember seasonal underwear. For every limited-edition pair sold, $2 will be donated to the foundation.
As a returning sponsor for the fourth year in a row, Xbox will be activating through Xbox Live sessions, filming in the Xbox Lounge at the Movember House (the charity’s Toronto headquarters) starting mid-November and running until the end of the month. The events will be streamed live on Mixer, the brand’s proprietary streaming service.
The details of Babsocks’s activations have not been released.
In an attempt to maximize the impact of every partnership, the foundation decided to prioritize quality over quantity this year, said Fautley. “We want to make sure that the brands that do take part in Movember actually want to move the dial forward around men’s health,” he said. Last year, Movember’s sponsorship portfolio included one major, four supporting and eight promotional sponsors; this year, it includes one less supporting sponsor and half the number of promotional sponsors.
Now in its tenth year of fundraising in Canada, the Movember Foundation has raised more than $839 million and funded projects in 21 countries for prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention.
