“Let’s go to work,” the canned voice of DJ Casper commanded over the bump of his “Cha Cha Slide,” and a legion of radioactive-orange booty shorts snapped into action against the disco-lit darkness. The Hooters Girls had claimed the concourse at the Sam’s Town Bowling Center, and phone cameras rolled as the crowd took in the spectacle.
The girls were working it for a cause, as the Hooters resort had teamed with the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on its annual Out of the Gutters benefit. It was the second of 11 such events scheduled through August for volunteers from the off-Strip casino, and General Manager Michael Storm said the force included about 60 Hooters Girls raring to “give a hoot.”
“I don’t like the idea of, I sit in my office and I cut a check, and it just goes out and it is what it is. If I’m gonna do something, I want it to be big,” said Storm, who took over as GM of Hooters a year ago, after seven as vice president of operations for the D and Golden Gate on Fremont Street’s casino corridor. “It’s not just, ‘Hey, Hooters is donating some money;’ it’s an awareness campaign for the charities we’re involved with. And I think the best way to get that awareness is to do something big enough to where people take notice.”
The plan to get the community to look is rooted in a concept Storm called “absolutely insane.” The property’s Month of Giving would funnel its entire August marketing budget into “tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of donations to local charities in need,” including Habitat for Humanity, the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Three Square Food Bank, Goodwill, Communities in Schools, Salvation Army, St. Jude’s Ranch for Children, Shine Family Foundation and Make-A-Wish. But given the stated desire to inspire similar action by other businesses, the campaign plays up participation just as much as donation.
Storm said his initial idea employed just the iconic Hooters Girls, but he got feedback that departments across the casino wanted in on it. The result is a crew that includes cocktail waitresses, housekeepers, security personnel and HR executives, each signing up for whatever service personally resonates.
The night before the Aug. 4 kickoff at a Henderson construction site for Habitat for Humanity, Storm was worried the 5 a.m. start and promise of hard, dirty labor might mean maybe half of the 10 Hooters Girls on the schedule would show.
Spending for good
Given the rich tradition of businesses reaching into the community to support good causes along with their own missions, an almost constant supply of events is on the calendar. For a sense of the spectrum, check out these opportunities to apply your consumer dollars to helping locals in need.
• FINDLAY RV + OPPORTUNITY VILLAGE: The beneficiary: Opportunity Village serves Southern Nevadans with intellectual disabilities through advocacy, employment and social programs aimed at enhancing the lives of affected individuals and their families.
The partnership: Through August, Findlay RV is donating $100 to OV for every vehicle sold.
• WHOLE FOODS + HELP OF SOUTHERN NEVADA: The beneficiary: HELP assists low-income families, the homeless and others in need of a way to self-sufficiency with direct social services, trainings and referrals.
The partnership: Over five years, the “HELP2O” campaign has distributed nearly 100,000 bottles of water to local homeless. Donations can be bought or dropped at all Las Vegas and Henderson Whole Foods through August 31, and cash donations can be made through HELP-branded change jars at the registers.
• PDQ + VETERANS VILLAGE: The beneficiary: Veterans Village provides 24-hour assistance to U.S. military veterans living in Las Vegas through transitional and permanent housing, crisis intervention and intensive support services.
The partnership: While supplies last, Las Vegas’ two PDQ restaurants will sell American-made camouflage hats for $15, all proceeds going to Veterans Village. Buyers will receive a card for a free meal of chicken tenders, a sandwich or salad.
• BLUE MAN GROUP + SHANNON WEST HOMELESS YOUTH CENTER: The beneficiary: Shannon West offers shelter, education and skill-building services to at-risk youth who are homeless or in danger of being homeless.
The partnership: The Strip production is selling $10 tickets for the 10,000th show at 4 p.m. on Aug. 16, with proceeds going toward supplying musical instruments to HELP’s center for homeless youth.
“To my surprise, 14 girls showed up at 5 in the morning, ready to go, and they worked — they worked their butts off. Not only did we finish the house that we were there to do, but they gave us a second house, as well. We split our girls into two teams, we worked on two houses, did all of the work that Habitat gave us to do and still had 45 minutes to spare,” Storm said. “It’s times like that when you look at the team you have and you’re really proud. It shows you what’s important to them.”
CAUSE MARKETING
Storm sees the Month of Giving as part of a grander plan to energize Las Vegas’ king-size outpost of the 33-year-old Hooters brand, which he admits can get lost in the local service industry’s density of beautiful women. In emphasizing brand strengths such as “zero pretense” and playfulness, Storm realized they could be applied to raising awareness in ways that wouldn’t just benefit the property.
“It all goes back to the Sarah McLachlan commercial with the puppies and the crying, and it just tears your heart out,” he said. “When you think of some of these charities, you think that it’s sad and it’s depressing. And something that we want to show, and part of the reason why we’re actually filming all of this, is that it doesn’t need to be that way. Look at yesterday.”
He was referring to Out of the Gutters, where the girls swept in and snuggled puppies, posed for selfies with bowlers and caused merry scenes to support the NSPCA’s mission in a city with a serious pet-overpopulation problem.
“We saw it as a great opportunity because, of course, it’s the Hooters Girls!” said NSPCA board president Kathy Jung, laughing. “They brought a great donation to the sanctuary, a $1,000 donation, and in addition to that, they came out here and just supported the cause. They were doing photos all over the bowling lanes with people — they were just sharing the love, telling stories of their dogs and cats and pets. So they’re a great, great part of our organization now.”
Such mutually beneficial cause marketing is nothing new. In fact, a 2013 Forbes story suggested the “nice” practice had become essential for any business.
“As a human, I know that I’m more apt to support people in business who support things that I care about,” said Michelle Wilmoth, an NSPCA board member who represents other nonprofit groups through marketing firm PR Plus, which counts Hooters among its clients. Wilmoth said she sees more of a response from the media to materials tied to good causes, and she believes consumer behavior can be shaped by businesses taking positive action.
It often takes the form of a one-off event or smaller-scale promotion tied to the daily routine, so Hooters is making a gutsy play for the community to see it as more than the place with hot girls and good chicken wings. Storm has volunteers (including YouTube sensation ScottDW of “Stormtrooper Twerk” fame) filming the month for a series of three-minute shorts that will post to social media, showcasing the crew sorting donations at Goodwill, packing lunches at Three Square, giving school supplies to Pack the Bus and Take 5 to Care, treating first responders to lunch, cheering up kids at St. Jude’s Ranch and more.
“I am absolutely terrified of doing this, of pulling the marketing. But it’s the right thing to do. And you know, what’s another billboard?” Storm said. “We’re feeding 3,000 kids. That’s amazing.”
CORE CULTURE
Perhaps just as vital as the community’s response is that of Hooters employees such as 21-year-old Laura Clevenstine. She was among those who showed up for the Habitat build, and the next day at the NSPCA event, she was still on a high.
“We painted front doors, closet doors; we leveled ground. … It was a lot of fun, and actually, some of us girls are thinking about going back this week and helping out,” Clevenstine said, adding that she planned to spend some of her rare days off giving more hoots.
Breathless from her spirited styling of the Macarena, she talked about the nonprofits and their specific missions, demonstrating that this was not just a paycheck for her. She’d even been calling her friends out on social media to get off the couch and into the fray.
“This definitely has gotten my attention. … It’s a little overwhelming, because we go through our lives worrying about ourselves and our wants and our needs, and we don’t realize that we have so much time and energy we could put toward helping other people,” she said. “I’m in love with the fact that we’re doing this right now.”
That kind of love can deepen an employee’s loyalty and respect for her company, and affect job performance and retention. According to another Forbes story from 2014, referencing the report “Snapshot: Trends and Strategies to Engage Employees in Greater Giving,” cause-related initiatives were “an increasingly important tool for employee engagement, one that workers (especially millennials) have come to not only expect, but expect to be administered with creativity and advanced technology.”