Since the beginning of April, the American Red Cross has been partnering with the Peanuts brand to convince more people to donate blood.

Donors have the chance to receive a free t-shirt featuring Snoopy leaning against the Red Cross logo when they donate blood, platelets or plasma. The Snoopy campaign ends on April 23. According to the Red Cross, the shirts were created as a part of a promotional deal to encourage blood donation.

The campaign has taken off within Gen Z; getting your blood drawn and then showcasing your “Snoopy Merch” has become a viral TikTok trend, and it has worked. According to the University of Minnesota Red Cross Club (UMNRCC), more students than normal have been donating blood during April.

Student group fuels education and donation rates on campus

UMNRCC is a direct affiliate with the nationally recognized American Red Cross and aims to host monthly blood drives on or near campus, UMNRCC said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

The Club said they typically have to extend offers of recruitment through various social media platforms to obtain more donors, however, they said April has been different since the Snoopy shirts rolled out.

“Our blood drives normally consist of 22% first-time donors and our April drive currently has 60% first-time donors scheduled to donate,” UMNRCC co-president Zoe DeZeeuw said.

DeZeeuw said with the increased donors at drives this April, the donor slots filled up two weeks prior to the April 14 drive with minimal outside promotional inquiries.

“As far as future merchandise goes, the Red Cross already offers great incentives such as $10 Amazon gift cards and other t-shirts, but I hope we will see more fun collabs and Snoopy gear in the future,” DeZeeuw said.

Amy Riha, co-president of the UMNRCC, said the club typically utilizes word-of-mouth and social media to advertise upcoming drives, but to increase campus outreach they can also be seen in Moos Tower at tables displaying flyers. The club has also used gift cards for Raising Cane’s lemonade and Insomnia Cookies in the past to draw in more donors, she said.

“We are always looking for new incentives from local businesses to help draw in donors for our drives,” Riha said. “Our club hosts blood drives on campus in hopes of making them more accessible to our student body.”

Maximizing patient blood management and the impact of merchandise

Professor and Director of the University’s Blood Bank Laboratory Claudia Cohn conducts research in the field of transfusion medicine as well as focuses on the concept of patient blood management.

Cohn said she recently had a patient who needed plasma, but her blood bank had to initially decline due to the lack of plasma readily available.

“Within a year, we went from less than 80% of proper infusions to over 95% appropriate transfusions,” Cohn said. “We also decreased red cell use by 15% and platelet use by 25%.”

Cohn said she and the entire blood transfusion industry is particularly worried younger people are not donating enough as older people because the majority of donations have been coming from baby boomers.

Cohn said if higher donation rates are being observed through creating new merchandise, then we need to “run with it.”

“It’s a tremendously important puzzle why more people won’t donate,” Cohn said. “Only 3% of people who are eligible to donate do so, and that is just not tenable.”