Twiggy encourages M&S customers to recycle
Marks & Spencer has turned to model Twiggy to front its latest Oxfam recycling initiative as it aims to encourage customers to bring in 400,000 clothes in one day.
M&S is asking customers to bring unwanted clothing and accessories, which will be resold or recycled, to its stores on September 8. The items will be resold or recycled by Oxfam.
Customers donating clothes and accessories will receive a £5 money -off voucher when they spend £35 on fashion in store.
As part of the campaign, the retailer has created an online tool which lets customers virtually dress a mannequin with clothes and accessories to find out more about how their donations can make a difference. For example, a man’s suit could raise £20 for Oxfam, which could supply food for three families for ten days during an emergency.
Richard Gillies, director of Plan A, CSR and Sustainable Business at M&S, says, “By clearing out your wardrobe and simply dropping off your unwanted clothes and accessories at our stores, you can help the environment and help Oxfam save lives.”
The scheme is part of the retailer’s Plan A programme, which aims to make M&S the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015. M&S said that since its clothes exchange programme started with Oxfam in 2008, it has collected 9.2m items of clothing and raised over £6.7m.
Oxfam and Marks & Spencer’s Clothing Exchange tie-up last month was named the “most admired” partnership between a corporate organisation and a charity.
According to the latest C&E Corporate NGO Partnerships Barometer, the M&S and Oxfam’s partnership, which also won a Marketing Week Engage Award earlier this year, “sets the benchmark to which other organisations aspire” and delivers the “corporate mission” for both parties through effective communication.
