Digital Talk: Compassion's new social marketing campaign

Digital Talk: Compassion's new social marketing campaign 



The best cure for a case of the first-world miseries is to think of those less fortunate; better still to do something proactive with those thoughts. Compassion Australia last week sent out a 'think CHILDREN' booklet to child sponsors, which contains activities to help sponsors and their families better understand the plight of their Compassion children (the organisation currently has 91,706 children under is wings). The booklet is just one part of the organisation's new marketing strategy.

"In February this year, Compassion Australia launched two new marketing campaigns: 'i believe' and 'think CHILDREN'," says communications manager Catherine Ryan. "The aim of the 'think CHILDREN' campaign is to bring people back to the heart of Compassion’s ministry: releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. The 'i believe' campaign challenges supporters on the issues, causes and prevention of child mortality."

Compassion Australia’s Marketing Director, Andrew Streat, is excited about the direction his marketing team is taking with these campaigns.

"Compassion’s marketing in the past has focused largely on the programs we run and the support we offer to children in developing nations," he says. "The focus of the new campaign is to get people thinking about the causes behind the programs, with the aim to reveal that children in poverty are no different to our own sons and daughters, brothers and sisters; they are simply dictated to by their surroundings."

The aim of the 'think CHILDREN' booklet is to educate, inform and inspire in an interactive way, and it forms part of the organisation's new social marketing campaign – a new-look website, Facebook page, Twitter feed and YouTube videos (see below).

"We are using a variety of tools and channels to communicate the message of our marketing campaigns," says Ryan. "Digital community is a big part of that (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter), as well as through our website, direct mail to our current supporters, events, Christian radio advertising and relationship building with churches, schools and communities."

The scrapbook-y layout of the 'think CHILDREN' booklet includes a tear-out bookmark of suggested questions to ask your sponsor child in your correspondence (Who is your best friend? If you could invent one thing, what would it be?), a perforated memory card game, a fold-out 'Holistic child development' poster and perforated recipe cards to help you host a "Gastronomic Tour of the Globe" with a side-serve of information about conditions in the respective countries represented through the dishes.

"There are so many ways to get involved in the work of Compassion—from sponsoring a child or supporting one of our other child development programs, to joining the Child Advocate Network and speaking up on behalf of children in poverty, to just praying for children around the world," says Ryan. "We never want to hide the fact that our work releasing children from poverty is in Jesus’ name. However, children assisted by the work of Compassion are not required to attend church in order to be part of the programs and receive the benefits of our programs regardless of their faith. The same applies to our supporters."



Girl With a Satchel

1 comments:

Rachel said...

Yay - Compassion! :-)