Up by the shoestrings
In 1946 a seven-year-old girl from a village near C’eske, in former Czechoslovakia painted an artwork that an international business obtained for use in a direct mail greeting card drive. Sixty years later, the global greeting card campaign is still going strong and generating in excess of US$55 to 60 million for the brand annually.
In 1987 an agency by the name of Chapter One Direct launched an integrated poster and print campaign offering jargon-free information on legal matters on behalf of a Switzerland-headquartered corporation in the environmental sector. Credited with reinventing face-to-face marketing, within two years the campaign helped double the brand’s income and resulted in more than 45,000 requests for copies of the printed brochure.
“NFP marketing must engage the consumer in a far more emotionally complex way.”
Just eight years later a decision was made by a group of clever Austrian entrepreneurs to approach prospective clients in public places with the ambitious aim of getting 1000 people to sign a special banking form that would see them commit to paying a monthly sum to help guarantee the company’s future. Within 12 months the local arm of the animal welfare business found itself working alongside 13,000 new regular supporters, rising to 50,000 by the end of the next calendar year.
These three campaigns have more in common than just unprecedented success and a European connection. Each was created on behalf of a not-for-profit (NFP) client (Unicef, Greenpeace and WWF respectively).
