Introducing the Brand Marketing Spotlight series where we highlight modern relationship marketing techniques used by some of the most recognizable brand names out there. Stay tuned!
To many women, the Girl Scouts isn’t a club or extracurricular hobby — it’s an institution that cultivates positive values and an entrepreneurial spirit. The organization inspired political figures like Michelle Obama, NASA astronauts like Christina Koch, and acting icons like Grace Kelly. Today, the Girl Scouts brand reaches beyond the US to represent young women around the world. But this reach didn’t grow spontaneously — it was carefully cultivated through ingenious Girl Scouts marketing initiatives.
The traditional image of Girl Scouts in pop culture revolves around badges, camping, and learning first aid. In recent decades, however, the organization revised its brand image to focus on one central task: cookie sales. The campaign proved to be a phenomenal success, cultivating international attention through social media and traditional advertising channels. Today, the Girl Scouts have not only become relevant to a new generation, but they also manage to earn $800 million in revenue each year.
How did the Girl Scouts accomplish this feat? Let’s shine the Brand Marketing Spotlight on them to find out:
Girl Scouts is for Girls, But Cookies are for Everyone
As an organization, the Girl Scouts’ primary focus is on young women. Its goal is to build “girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.” When it comes to cookie sales, however, its customer demographic is far broader. Individual scouts are encouraged to develop their entrepreneurial skills to target any relevant audience. If a scout can find an untapped market, she can create a success story for the entire brand.
In short, a Girl Scout’s customer can be everyone and anyone. Individual scouts are encouraged to seek out the best opportunities in their local community. There is no shortage of stories and anecdotes about the clever ways these young women found new markets. Some are heartwarming, such as the girls who partnered with florists to distribute cookies on Valentine’s Day. Others are hilarious, particularly the troop that realized they were selling hundreds of boxes outside of a cannabis dispensary.
What’s more, cookie sellers benefit from an association with a charitable cause. All revenue from these sales goes towards their local Scouts chapter, furthering community engagement with young girls. Even customers who don’t particularly like these cookies can be convinced to stock up for this exact reason. When coupled with artificial scarcity by only selling products at certain times of the year, Girl Scouts have a prime advantage few retail brands can match.
Girl Scouts Marketing in an Age of Social Media
Along with their inherent advantages, Girl Scouts prioritize keeping up with modern marketing techniques. Simply going door-to-door with a wheelbarrow of cookies isn’t as effective as it was for past generations. That means Scouts are encouraged to keep up to date with the latest marketing techniques, up to and including social media campaigns.
Perhaps the best-known examples of this trend come from widely shared viral content. Some scouts take the route of creating humorous music videos — including this one parodying Cardi B and another based on Lizzo. Others will create original digital content to highlight their own efforts. When these examples gain traction, the central Girl Scouts brand promotes them on official Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. Eventually, traditional news organizations and morning shows might share these stories — or even the parodied celebrities!
This reach can also have a feedback effect that drives additional cookie sales. The Girl Scouts have managed to successfully leverage this fact with digital cookie sale options across mobile and desktop devices. In other words, a scout with a high-performing viral hit might find themselves with an international platform for their personal campaign!
The Girl Scouts Strategies All Marketers Should Learn From
Viral sensations come and go, but efforts from the Girl Scouts are particularly effective at resonating with audiences. One reason for this is that scouts have cleverly tapped into several core marketing strategies. Stewart Goodbody — Girl Scouts USA senior director of communications and external affairs — pointed out several techniques scouts rely on to drive cookie sales and brand retention:
- Authenticity: Each successful scout campaign, from music videos to viral stories, comes from an individual scout. The larger brand does not create this unique content but will highlight their work on social media. This creates a powerful sense of authenticity that, as we’ve mentioned previously, is invaluable to modern consumers.
- Education: While these stories gain traction with mainstream audiences, the Girl Scouts also need to ensure that messaging serves their mission. It accomplishes this by following up on each viral campaign with educational information detailing how the program works and what the money supports.
- Humour: A healthy sense of humor goes a long way towards attracting audiences. The most famous examples we’ve mentioned here will generate laughs and endear customers to the girls themselves.
When these strategies are combined with local marketing techniques, the scouts aren’t just able to sell cookies — they can retain long-term buyers. While exact statistics vary by troop, Girl Scouts insight reports and guides suggest that many current buyers are returning customers.
From Selling Cookies to selling Girl Scouts Values
The impact of these Girl Scouts campaigns goes beyond annual cookie sales; they’re also a crucial part of the brand. Each successful initiative banks goodwill for the organization at a national level. Over time, this encourages customers to buy more cookies and — more importantly — encourages girls to become scouts themselves. That’s why the modern Girl Scouts can boast 2.5 million members in the United States, a figure that includes both girls and adult volunteers.
As always, marketing is about selling an emotion as well as a product. By finding new ways to represent time-honored cookie sales, these initiatives quietly promote timeless values of entrepreneurship, personal development, and community-building. As long as Girl Scouts continue to support these values in clever ways, they will be relevant and engaging for many years to come.