Long therm steady growth to 420 Members and nearly maximum satisfaction level.
International Association for Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products
A.I.S.E. is the International Association for Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products. Based in Brussels, A.I.S.E. has been the voice of the industry to EU regulators for over 65 years. Membership consists of 29 national associations across Europe, 18 corporate members and 13 value chain partners. Through this extensive network, A.I.S.E. represents over 900 companies supplying household and professional cleaning products and services across Europe.
International Association for Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products (A.I.S.E) team &
German Household & Beauty-Care Association (IKW) team
Introduction
In 1970 the association counted 142 members. In 2016 the membership had tripled to 422 members with a great members’ satisfaction level of 1,6 which is nearly maximum level (1=max, 6 = worst) based on the members survey carried out in 2015.
Discovery
The number of members has been tracked on a regular basis and shows great acceptance of the association’s work. In addition in 2015 for the first time a members survey has been carried out with great results. All members have been asked several questions ranging from general satisfaction level up to detailed suggestions for optimization.
Objectives
We wanted to improve the association’s ability to reperesent our members’ interests by involving them and grow the number of members in the long run.
Activities
IKW and AISE arrange a multi targeted approach to satisfy each individual stakeholder group.
They focused their members interests and created an enormous variety of programs and activities:
Members Coordination
Member survey - satisfaction
The associations took part and initiated a large numbers of committee meetings (22 meetings p. a.)
In 2015 a members survey has been carried out to review the members satisfaction and to get issues for optimization.
Members reassured a high satisfaction level of 1.6 (1 – max, 6 – min)
They offer strategy workshops
Public Relations (2 bn media reach p. a.)
Press Conferences
Journalist trainings
Press releases
Questions & Answers
Publications, consultations
Youth undisguised - visual
Studies
Beauty: “Youth undisguised” - An in-depth psychological-representative study on self- perception and self-esteem of adolescents and young adults.
Home Care: “Keep it clean” - An in-depth psychological-representative study on evaluating cleaning works and deriving cleaning types
Trainings and Seminars
IKW and AISE offer a huge number of trainings and seminars on various topics (750 trainees p. a.)
Europe wide Sustainability Seal (220 companies, 95 % EU- Coverage, 1 bn Units p. a.
Engage with voluntary industry initiatives in context of sustainable development and product safety.
Working on end-user friendly labelling an information
Annual Report 2015 – 2016
Reports
Annual report and Sustainability report.
Household and Beauty tips, booklets and other information materials for end-users
Frequent communication of news and reports
Congresses (1,200 participations p. a.)
Topics: Small and medium-sized enterprises, sustainability, trends
7 big events p.a.
Dialog platforms (500 mio media reach p. a.)
All stakeholder groups are represented
Initiatives benefit from synergetic effects
Innovation
Lots of new technique or creative approaches have been used for this project. Just to name a few examples: Dialog Platforms ‘Haut.de’, ‘Forum Waschen’, ‘Dialog Kosmetik’ or the Europe-wide product seal Charter for Sustainable cleaning with a steadily growing membership.
Marketing
European Communication Campaign – Charter promotes Suistainability
The great development was based on a large members engagement program consisting of a ‘multi-targeted and multi-faceted approach’ for each individual stakeholder group i.e. starting internally by engaging its own members, and externally by reaching out to Media, Authorities, Trade, Science, Consumers, Customers using tools like enhanced members cooperation, stakeholder and members’ perception studies, PR-campaigns, trainings, reports, dialog platforms, congresses and a European-wide industry sustainability scheme with a product seal.
Challenges
Opposing interests of different stakeholder goups which were trying to undermine our positions and imited budgets of potential members to join the association were the biggest challenges. These were overcome by solid and permanent argumentation and infiltration of all different stakeholder groups.
Achievements
Both number of members and members’ satisfaction level has by far surpassed our expectations.
Our effort has led to a growing number of members which has tripled since 1970 and to a members’ satisfaction nearly to maximum level. Furthermore it has led to an excellent financial situation with growing income to finance additional projects and to secure the long term survival of the association.
Financials
A major part of the investment was coming from the associations’ budgets. In addition fund raising
has been made for several sub-projects via some associations’ members. Finally some budgets have been created via additional association commercial businesses such as selling free sales certificates and seminars. Overall an estimated budget of 100 Mio€ has been invested over 50 years, starting in 1968.
Today the association’s financial picture is extremely solid creating significant value to further improve the reserves and to increase members’ support.
What would we do differently?
Set an even clearer objective art the beginning of the long term project
Define strategic pillars to achieve the targets right from the beginning.
Wider impact
The increase in members and the memers' satisfaction have led to a great acceptance of all relevant stakeholders like the media, authorities, trade, science, consumers and customers.
