What’s in a Name? For Feeding America, Everything

David Arquette is still better known in some quarters as husband to Courteney Cox and brother to Rosanna Arquette.

But he's also chairman of Feeding America’s Entertainment Council, where his Hollywood ties have helped attract his friends for a worthy cause.

Thanks to Arquette, stars including Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Rachael Ray, Mario Batali, Josh Groban, Ben Harper and Sheryl Crow and (of course) his wife Courteney are helping with the organization's goal of feeding the one in six Americans (49.1 million, including 16.7 million children) who do not have enough to eat on a daily basis.  

The oranization, formerly known as Second Harvest, is now gearing up for its single biggest day of the year, when Help Stamp Out Hunger returns on May 8th.

Feeding America couldn't distribute any food without its network of 203 food banks, which will distribute nearly 3 billion pounds of food this year and raise about $100 million.

Its 2006 name change from Second Harvest occurred after marketing executive Wendy MacGregor brainstormed with newly hired CEO Vicki Escarra, and the two women ‘took the bull by the horns' as Ad Age puts it.

The immediate branding challenges: how much to spend on becoming top of mind, without taking away valuable funds from its primary goal of feeding hungry people? And was the 30-year-old Second Harvest name clear enough to communicate their mission?

Boston Consulting Group, Prophet, and Interbrand were brought on board to weigh in, and Feeding America was born.

"It's basically too hard to communicate what the organization does when they need to do it in a sound bite," Laura Traut-Coyle, Feeding America's director of cause marketing told Ad Age. "Feeding America does that, and Second Harvest didn't."

With inertia overcome and brand clarity achieved, Feeding America now calls Kraft, Wal-mart, PepsiCo, United Airlines, General Mills, Kroger and PepsiCo partners.

Fox's American Idol and NBC's The Biggest Loser are both involved in promoting the charity, with Idol alone raising $45 million via "Idol Gives Back." Loser helped wrangle 500 million pounds of food from General Mills since January through its “Pound for Pound Challenge.”

Donations during the summer months are most crucial since children can't access school lunch programs.

That's why this year's Help Stamp Out Hunger campaign is so critical.

Led by Arquette's star power, and leveraging Facebook, Twitter and wireless (text STAMP3 to 30305* to participate), the goal this year is set a record by raising more than one billion pounds of food.

The Campbell Soup Company, the National Association of Letter Carriers and the US Postal Service are on board to help reach that goal. Now, it's up to the public to help eradicate hunger—at least for a little while...