AutoNation's drive to beat cancer has become a brand

Pink is AutoNation Inc.'s favorite color.

A rosy hue shines on cubicles at its Florida headquarters.

Employees don pink T-shirts, hats and socks and sip coffee from pink mugs.

The tag line "Drive Pink. Drive Safe. Drive Now" closes each pink-accented TV commercial.

Since the largest dealership group in the U.S. began devoting nearly all its philanthropic efforts to cancer, with a special focus on breast cancer, the mission has become visibly embedded in its culture and unmistakably linked to the AutoNation brand everywhere it operates.

The Drive Pink conversations began five years ago, when AutoNation decided to paste its corporate name across all of its nonluxury dealerships.

Like most dealers, AutoNation participated in plenty of charitable efforts, but "there was no coherent, compelling, singular focus," CEO Mike Jackson said. "With branding the company the same name from coast to coast, it really was the time to define a purpose for the company that was greater than just selling and fixing cars."

AutoNation found that purpose in Drive Pink, a mission it incorporates into the tiniest details. Offices at the company's headquarters are lit by pink lightbulbs. Parts and accessories are delivered in pink boxes to its 274 dealerships in 16 states. Vehicles on the lots have window stickers with shades of pink and a pink license-plate frame.

"Without a brand umbrella, I'm not sure we could have done all that from coast to coast and unified 27,000 employees around this singular effort," Jackson told Automotive News. In markets where AutoNation has many stores, pink is highly visible not only at the dealerships, but also on cars driving around with the pink frames.

In 2014, just 11 percent of consumers connected the dealership group with pink, according to an external survey commissioned by AutoNation. Last year, 70 percent of respondents associated pink with AutoNation, said Marc Cannon, AutoNation's chief marketing officer.

In early 2013, AutoNation had not yet embraced Drive Pink, but it was making its way toward a focus on cancer initiatives. The dealership group partnered with NASCAR driver Ryan Hunter-Reay, whose mother died of cancer. He won the Indianapolis 500 race soon after he began working with AutoNation.

The next year, AutoNation agreed to sponsor the inaugural Cure Bowl, a college football game in Orlando that supports the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Inspired by the partnership, AutoNation's leaders yearned to make the quest to cure cancer part of the company as a whole, present at each dealership, collision center and auction center — and Drive Pink was born.

From that point forward, employees asked every customer who bought a vehicle from AutoNation if they would like to keep the pink license plate frame in exchange for a $1 to $10 donation to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation or another cancer organization. AutoNation has installed at least 1 million pink frames, Jackson said.

"The AutoNation brand kind of pulls [Drive Pink] together. It unifies our stores. It unifies our associates," said Dave Koehler, Tampa Bay market president. "It gives us a tremendous amount of horsepower behind what we're trying to do."

Dealerships can choose a cancer-related organization in their local markets to support. In Tampa, Fla., dealerships support the Moffitt Cancer Center.

"It has become part of the fabric of who we are," Koehler said. "The frames, the badges, the shirts, all the things we can do with the cancer-related charities in our markets. It's just part of every day."

Even the company's logo — at the nonluxury dealerships, AutoNation USA stores, collision centers, auction centers and websites — has a pink stripe beneath the AutoNation name.

All of AutoNation's nonluxury brands agreed to let the company go around their facility standards by including a pink stripe on the outside of its stores. Both luxury and mass-market manufacturers allow AutoNation to install the Drive Pink license plate frames.

"They see this is a substantive grass-roots effort within AutoNation," Jackson said. If they stopped AutoNation from including pink in the logo, "They really would be stepping in front of a freight train of resentment."

Years ago, AutoNation executives had discussed supporting one cause, but the initiative seemed to be too hefty because each dealership had a different name and supported different causes, Jackson said.

Drive Pink "came from the decision to brand the company, and that brand would stand for something substantively and distinctively," Jackson said.

On the leadership team and beyond, Jackson saw more of his associates facing challenges related to cancer. Even AutoNation founder Wayne Huizenga and his wife battled cancer. Jackson and his team realized that most people already had dealt with cancer, were currently fighting it or knew they could someday get their own diagnosis, he said.

"It's an effort that is very meaningful to all the associates," he said. "When you talk about building a culture in a company, there has to be something of substance that binds everyone together."

Breast cancer is a common cause for companies to associate themselves with because it's not political or controversial, said Deborah Small, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who specializes in charitable giving and consumer judgment and decision-making.

"It's not like immigrant rights or something along those lines that's quickly politicized," Small said. "There's not two sides of it."

It's also relatable and very much connected with a color and symbol, she said. Most U.S. consumers connect the color pink and the pink ribbon symbol with breast cancer.

"Because of its commonness, nearly everyone knows somebody who has experienced this," she said. "There's kind of a community of advocates that feel passionate about the cause."

Even though supporting a cure for cancer is a common mission for corporations, AutoNation's deep-seated commitment stands out, said Martha Rader, a leadership consultant and professor at Keiser University in West Palm Beach, Fla., about 50 miles from AutoNation's Fort Lauderdale headquarters.

"Those companies that can really get behind a cause and commit to it and align all of their priorities are going to differentiate themselves," she said. "There are such great changes coming [to the auto industry] that those dealerships that can get ahead of things and can inspire that positive culture now are going to win later."

Fighting the disease became personal for Jackson when his wife, Alice Jackson, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011. At the time, AutoNation had a long-standing relationship with the Susan G. Komen group and other cancer organizations in dealerships' markets.

"To see the courage and the perseverance and the pain they go through to meet the challenges, you can be the toughest guy in the world, and it will bring a tear to your eye," Jackson said. He said the diagnosis gave him "insight on what goes on at a human level."

Alice Jackson has been cancer-free for four years. She joined the Breast Cancer Research Foundation's board in 2016.

So far, AutoNation has generated $3.3 million for the foundation through the Cure Bowl and more than $12 million for cancer research centers overall.

Paula Levenson, AutoNation's manager of corporate affairs and communications, spends the majority of her time on Drive Pink initiatives. She is part of the eight-person group AutoNation calls the Pink Team. Levenson, who worked on AutoNation's philanthropic efforts before Drive Pink launched, said having this single focus better positions the company to make a substantial impact.

"When we rebranded, it meant we could bring so much to the table," she said. "There were so many resources that we had that we could contribute to one cause."

Small, the Wharton professor, said customers perceive companies' charity work as more authentic when there's a clear, sustained focus on a single cause. In contrast, one-off initiatives barely touch customers, she said.

"If it seems like a marketing ploy," she said, "consumers tend to see right through that."

By ingraining Drive Pink so thoroughly, AutoNation has "culturized" the campaign, Rader said. And it goes much further than just using pink accessories to raise awareness, with employees and managers frequently participating in activities to help the cause. For example, on what the company calls Drive Pink Across America Day, which was Oct. 11 last year, associates nationwide assembled and delivered more than 5,000 gift bags filled with items to comfort children and adults undergoing cancer treatment.

Such broad involvement of management, employees and the community is what characterizes the most successful of the countless corporate charity campaigns out there, Rader said.

"It has to permeate. It has to be aligned to the entire organization and the community for it to work," she said. "AutoNation has taken this to a deep degree. You can feel the passion. That's what makes it work."