Since we can now officially say “’Tis the season”, and the red buckets are showing up outside the front doors of a lot of retailers, I’ve decided to write about an interesting campaign I came across a little while back involving the Salvation Army, a Portland, ME marketing firm, and a bit of guerilla marketing.
First started in San Francisco in 1891, the annual Red Kettle campaign has been the Salvation Army’s most prominent fundraising effort. In 2010, despite the economic recession, the group brought in a record-breaking $139 million, all of which was used in the communities where it was collected (Salvation Army Red Kettles Set New Record). But despite their honorable work during the holiday season, the Salvation Army’s marketing efforts have always been quite slim. As the group’s Development Director Craig Evans put it, “The Salvation Army has not invested heavily in marketing or advertising, we’ve prided ourselves on good stewardship…83 cents of every dollar going back to services.” (MacLean, 2009)
In 2009, with the intake of donations down 20-30 percent from previous years, the group turned to Portland, Maine-based marketing agency Via who agreed to help with their marketing needs at no cost. As Via copy editor Mike Irvine states, “We embraced the idea that we had no money–and so that’s where the idea started, let’s do a campaign that cost nothing.”
The campaign itself consisted of guerilla-style marketing incorporating the use of stamped messages on everything from pizza boxes to coffee cups, and used inspirational messages inscribed on glass surfaces in restrooms and on vehicles that would be driving around town. The effort took a great amount of coordination on the part of Via and included the help of 50 local businesses who agreed to help. As Evans further elaborated in the article “I look back at our origins, we started as a street ministry and sort of a guerrilla movement, why not use these guerrilla tactics…it’s a good fit.”
A campaign like this is effective for a number of different reasons. First and foremost, the Salvation Army enrolled local businesses into their efforts whose participation cost them nothing extra. Doing so meant that even though they maintained the collection buckets at larger stores like Wal-Mart, their campaign had greater reach through added exposure than in the past. Likewise, the target message was very clear, thought provoking, and relevant to the medium they chose. An example would be the stamps used on the products of local businesses. One such stamp read, “This ad cost nothing. The money we saved advertising on this hot cup helps us provide warm food for the homeless.”
For the IC statement, I would imagine it went something like this: “With your help, the Salvation Army provides for those in need each holiday season and throughout the year.”
Please check out the original news report video at this link to see the actual executions, and view the Salvation Army case study by Via Marketing at this link.
References
MacLean, M. (2009, May 14) Salvation Army’s edgy new marketing campaign. Retrieved December 24, 2011 from http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/2009/05/14/Salvation-Armys-edgy-new/1242352124.html
Salvation Army Red Kettles Set New Record (2012, March 16) Retrieved November 25, 2012 from http://salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf/vw-dynamic-index/EC697EA3613F2070852576E8004C7DCB?Opendocument
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