Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

The Challenge
Caramel is a non-profit charity organisation with the sole purpose of sweetening the lives of orphaned children (CaramelChildren) by collecting gifts from kind Samaritans and distribute them among homes once a year. This collection started to face a constant decrease in presents which in turn spurred frowns on the faces of children in these homes. How do we reverse this? How to get new donors, promote the noble cause, Caramel and collect gifts?

Insight, Strategy and the Idea

Insight:

Christmas was near, the situation became direr as it was felt that CaramelChildren had become invisible. Our in-depth research around the willingness to give to charities among the general public, concluded that prompting people to “give” to charity while they were already buying presents for their loved ones was the perfect time to maximize donations.

Strategy:

The strategy was clear: We targeted outlets with affluent shoppers to compel those with higher disposable income to buy another present for CaramelChildren. Outlets selected exuded play and learn: – Hamleys and BookAcess.

Media Execution
Donation bins with a transparent silhouette of children were strategically placed in outlets. The call to action was clear; fill the bins with presents and the silhouette gets visible. 2 half page ads (FOC) were placed in NST, and postings on the existing Caramel FB page were used to promote the drive. Furthermore, all communications carried a Hashtag, #caramelchildren in order to create a sense of unity around the effort. This got readers, visitors to stores and FB fans to promote via social media. The campaign ran throughout December.

Results and Effectiveness
Books and toys collected worth RM 39,539.90. 35,172 shares of #caramelchildren. Each child got double the normal gifts. Gifs : investment = 11 times. Reached 330,000 NST potential donors. 8share’s Caramel feature article (earned media), reached 500,000 users. Warm response from shoppers, outlets keen to repeat activity.