ConAgra Foods was serving up a new call-to-action to address the staggering issue of child hunger in America – but would consumers come to the table? The ConAgra Foods Child Hunger Ends Here (CHEH) Neighbourhood Rally campaign aimed to inspire consumers to host neighbourhood fundraisers to raise money for Feeding America and help the one in four U.S. children who don’t know where their next meal is coming from.The integrated campaign communicated a new message and made it easy for consumers to get involved:• Food banks need more than cans of beans – they need cash to procure food items in greatest demand.

• Consumers can order a CHEH kit and host their own rally; they can purchase participating ConAgra Foods brands to trigger a donation; and they can rally their friends online and off to support the cause.Launched with a celebrity rally on the Wisteria Lane set of "Desperate Housewives," sustained with blogger rallies nationwide, and supported by media/social media relations, the campaign netted 70,000 volunteers who raised the monetary equivalent of 2.7 million meals. It exceeded all goals – 1,100+ stories totalling more than 3.5 billion media impressions and 35 million social media impressions.

Strategy 1: Partner with celebrities to reach, engage the audience.

• Engaged actress Dana Delany (“Desperate Housewives”) as spokesperson. Delany fit the campaign’s audience; show is highly rated for that demographic.

• Secured Wisteria Lane, the set of “Desperate Housewives,” to host a star-studded kickoff event – the first of its kind on set.• Wrangled 20+ celebrities including David Arquette, Kathy Ireland, Melissa Rivers, Stephanie Pratt, and others (without compensation) to attend, share via social media, and fill backpacks for local food bank.

• Collected items from celebrities for an auction with ClothesOffOurBack.org.Strategy 2: Use traditional, social media relations to ignite interest, drive donations, engage consumers.• Blitzed traditional media, including a satellite media tour with Dana Delany and b-roll from Wisteria Lane event.• Selected 14 influential bloggers as CHEH ambassadors to talk about child hunger, host rallies, and sustain engagement.

• Launched microsite, Facebook/Twitter channels, blog.

The CHEH campaign moved the needle for awareness about child hunger and raised money for Feeding America, as well as exceeded all campaign objectives. Measures of success included:Goal 1: Drive awareness of the issue and what ConAgra Foods is doing to help.• More than 1,100 placements totalled 3.5 billion earned media impressions including "The Today Show," "Entertainment Tonight,"and USA Today. Surpassed goal by more than 50%.• Satellite Media Tour netted 32 airings totalling 4.8 million impressions.• Nearly 35 million social media impressions. Surpassed goal by 40%.

Goal 2: Engage consumers to raise funds for Feeding America.• Wrangled 20 celebrities to attend the kickoff event. Auctioned 131 celebrity items, raising monetary equivalent of 50,000+ meals.Nearly 70,000 people rallied to raise monetary equivalent of 2.7 million meals. Registered 1,600 rallies.• Bloggers wrote 154 posts, totalling 390,000 impressions; 1,350+ tweets, totalling 5.7 million impressions.