FRAMEBUYER | Buy One Give One

The New BOGO

A look at some of the companies growing business through giving back

BY ALICIA HOGLUND

a growing trend on the retail front in general, and in optical specifically, is the idea of consumers being able to help those in need through purchasing everyday items.

The buy one, give one niche is well established. Since 2006, TOMS, a popular footwear company, has pledged to donate a pair of shoes for every pair purchased. And in 2013, retail powerhouse Target teamed up with Feeding America to sell branded merchandise, including housewares and women’s and men’s apparel and accessories with each item displaying a number signifying the number of meals donated with the purchase.

Fueled by an emerging socially conscious consumer, a new kind of BOGO—the buy one, give one movement—is quickly picking up steam with consumers. And now, eyecare professionals can get in on the giving game with the help of a new crop of eyewear brands dedicated to bettering the lives of those less fortunate around the world.

GIVING BACK

For consumers, seeing exactly how their purchases affect those in need is a big incentive, and the idea of buying eyewear and donating a pair in one step is a win-win.

“People like helping people,” says Mike Malloy, CEO of Waveborn, a West Coast company specializing in California cool eyewear with a purpose. “The various giving models that companies are now using appeal to an individual’s empathy and compassion. We are providing an outlet for customers to buy something they like, and feel good about spending the money because they know a portion of it goes to supporting a good cause.”

The transparency the BOGO model provides is attractive to consumers. “I think buy one, give one is transparent and simple in a different way than those previous models,” says Shaun Paterson, CEO and founder of SHAUNS California, a luxury eyewear company that provides a free eye exam and pair of prescription glasses for someone in need with every pair sold. “I think the knowledge of the impact they’re having has really resonated with the consumer and fueled the model’s growth.”

For many customers, it equates to guilt-free shopping. “Consumers are putting their dollars toward products that can also help others,” says Blake Mycoskie, founder and chief shoe giver of TOMS, which launched its first sunglass collection in 2011 with the company’s one-for-one promise and is soon rolling out ophthalmic eyewear. “And they can feel good about improving someone’s life through a simple purchase.”

It also makes for an easy tiebreaker, says Kyle Yamaguchi, cofounder of 141 Eyewear, a company that, as its name describes, donates one pair of glasses for every pair sold. “Our retailers often tell us how hearing the 141 Eyewear giving story ‘seals the deal’ for their customers,” he says. “It combines self-gratification and the aspiration to help in one decision. If you have two great-looking frames and you know that one is going to help a kid in your home town, that’s a pretty easy call.”

HELPING HANDS

Consumers aren’t the only ones to benefit from do-good purchases. Aside from a boost in sales, ECPs are inspired to give back in other ways.

“Businesses large and small are realizing that it’s not just about making a profit, but using business to also improve lives is fairly easy thing to do,” says Mycoskie.

Waveborn’s Malloy adds that ECPs have been very receptive to the giving model. “These doctors have dedicated their lives to giving the gift of sight locally to their patients,” he says, “and together by selling our sunglasses in their practices, we can also give the gift of sight globally through our charity partners.”

141 Eyewear has seen a progression to more hands-on help. “Many of our opticians find ways to be generous with their communities,” says Yamaguchi. “We encourage many of the O.D.s and opticians who carry 141 to get involved by either volunteering at a Vision Van clinic or organizing a free eyecare clinic for their own community, which we support by providing frames from our kids collection.”

The same is true for TOMS. In fact, its philanthropic venture has sparked customers to help in other ways. “Over the years,” says Mycoskie, “we have seen really positive feedback to our one-for-one model, whether it’s customers wanting to join us on our Giving Trips or anxiously awaiting the next One for One product.”

QUALITY IS KEY

For SHAUNS’ Paterson, who has been legally blind since age 15, the gift of vision hits close to home. However, he stresses that the charitable aspect of the SHAUNS brand isn’t the only draw. “The premise from Day One was always to deliver a product that was handcrafted and exciting enough that the giving promise was not ‘required’ to sell the product—it was a bonus,” he says. “It’s a failure to me if people are not excited about our product irrespective of our mission.”

At the end of the day, however, it’s the giving that makes it worthwhile. “We want to deliver a true luxury product that can help transform the life of someone in need,” says Paterson. “Contributing to the eradication of visual impairment around the globe is the reason I entered the optical industry, and so long as we are in business, it will remain a commitment we have.”

141’s Yamaguchi has similar sentiment: “Donating locally in the U.S. and making sure our frames become prescription eyewear for individual kids has been the most rewarding and the most difficult to execute. From the entrepreneur’s white board to the customer’s point of decision, this model harmonizes cooperation and competition. We hope to see a lot more of it, in eyewear and beyond.”

FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT

Today, a growing number of eyewear brands are joining the battle against vision impairment. Here are just a few.

SHAUNS CALIFORNIA

PROFILE: A marriage of entrepreneurship and philanthropy, SHAUNS California’s founder and CEO Shaun Paterson set his sights on helping others by giving the gift of vision after a trip to Africa.

EYEWEAR: The ‘Soulful Luxury’ eyewear is handmade in Italy with exclusively Italian premium acetates and features Zeiss lenses.

DONATION: SHAUNS employs a one-for-one model, benefitting a VOSH (Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity) chapter from Canada, a general medical clinic in Honduras, and Optometry Giving Sight.

INFO: shaunscalifornia.com

SHAUNS California style Aisla

TOMS EYEWEAR

PROFILE: TOMS Founder and chief shoe giver Blake Mycoskie’s ah-ha moment came to him on a trip to Argentina in 2006. After five successful years in footwear, TOMS expanded its one-for-one efforts to eyewear.

EYEWEAR: TOMS eyewear offers on-trend styles and shapes for men and women in the $88 to $179 range.

DONATION: TOMS Eyewear helps to restore sight for the underserved in one of three ways: medical treatment, prescription glasses, or sight surgeries. To date, it has helped to restore more than 175,000 people’s vision through its one-for-one promise.

INFO: toms.com

TOMS style Sandela Indigo Crystal

141 EYEWEAR

PROFILE: With entrepreneurial instincts, a passion for product design, and a desire to give back, Kyle Yamaguchi and his wife Shu-Chu, an optician, started 141 Eyewear. The two invested significant time into understanding the one-for-one model in eyewear, and saw a place for a philanthropic eyewear company that took the giving model a step further—ensuring that each pair of donated frames became a custom-made pair of Rx eyeglasses for a child in need in the U.S.

EYEWEAR: Catering to women, men, and kids, 141 Eyewear offers a large selection of stylish acetate and metal frames in today’s most popular shapes and colors.

DONATION: With a “you buy, we give” motto, for every frame sold, one is donated to charitable organizations that turn them into prescription eyewear. 141’s premiere partner is OneSight, whose Vision Van visits communities across the U.S. and fits pre-screened kids with their own pair of prescription eyewear.

INFO: 141eyewear.com

141 Eyewear style Flanders

WAVEBORN

PROFILE: What began in 2011 with one model, the Marina, Waveborn offers the cool of fashion with the soul of giving. In June 2013, the company raised more than $20,000 through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign—more than double the original campaign goal.

COLLECTION: Handcrafted in Milan, Italy, Waveborn offers a variety of fashion-forward looks available in 25 colors with plano, polarized, or prescription lenses for both men and women.

DONATION: For each pair of sunglasses sold, Waveborn donates a new pair of prescription eyeglasses to someone in need or partially funds a sight-restoring surgery in the developing world through Unite for Sight and Surgical Eye Expeditions International (SEE), depending on the purchaser’s donation preference. Waveborn plans to add more charity partners in 2014.

INFO: waveborn.com

Profits from Waveborn’s eyewear funds vision care to those in need through partners such as SEE

SOLO EYEWEAR

PROFILE: What started as a class project at San Diego State University is now a mission to help those in need. Founders Jenny Amaraneni and Dana Holliday were called to action to help people worldwide live fuller, more productive lives by providing support to those with no access to vision care.

EYEWEAR: SOLO Eyewear is an eco-friendly line of hybrid bamboo sunglasses handcrafted using recycled bamboo.

DONATION: Each purchase of a pair of sunglasses funds eyecare, including prescription eyeglasses and sight-saving surgeries, for those in need. Since 2011, SOLO has funded eyecare for nearly 10,000 people across 19 countries.

INFO: soloeyewear.com

SOLO Eyewear sun styles

ADLENS

PROFILE: The Oxford, England-based company specializes in variable-focus eyewear featuring fluid-injection technology. Adlens was established in 2005 with the joint goals of addressing the unmet need for refractive vision correction in the developing world while also developing commercial applications of variable-focus lens technology.

EYEWEAR: Adlens offers a range of styles within its John Lennon and Hemisphere collections, both of which feature fluid-injection technology allowing the frames to be adjusted easily to between -4.50 and +3.50 diopters.

DONATION: Adlens donates a pair of glasses to someone in the developing world for every pair of fluid-injection glasses purchased from The John Lennon Collection and Hemisphere Sun and Optical lines through its Buy One Give One Program. Distribution is administered by Vision for a Nation Foundation, a charity that runs an innovative program that provides universal access to eyeglasses, one nation at a time, starting in Rwanda.

INFO: adlens.com

Adlens just released a new John Lennon Limited Edition gift set