365 Candles

Objectives

The brief was to increase individual donations to the Mirabel Foundation by $1 million in 2016 to raise awareness of the needs of children orphaned or abandoned due to parental drug use.

Campaign

Mirabel operates within a cluttered market, with over 54,000 registered charities in Australia alone. Donating is a fundamentally social act with the need for selfgratification. The winning NGEN campaign embraced ‘clicktivism’ and used the token of support that often ends up removing the need to donate or volunteer to generate actual donations. Research revealed people want donating to feel personal, easy, public, relevant and involve reward. Harnessing this behaviour, the plan is to link birthday reminders issued by Facebook to users about their friends, with a Mirabel takeover message, prompting the user to donate as a gift attached to their birthday message. The campaign would have a key burst in amrch to coincide with the beginning of the school year. It will use the Mirabel webpage and a 365 Candles portal (to be created) acting as a hub for donations and campaign information. The campaign will require an eDM database to send three

365 Candles messages to support awareness within an already loyal audience, and ambassadors to push social content to increase reach and credibility. Content will be seeded through family-orientated sites and bloggers in the first month and social platforms to be used to generate conversation, with #365 Candles linked to the Facebook donation mechanic.

Results

With the click of a button, the user donates a minimum of $5 and can opt in for annual giving. The message and donation is shared to the birthday recipient’s Facebook wall, and the donor receives a thank you message from Mirabel. This partnership creates a reciprocal gratification and value exchange as the birthday message receiver looks good for encouraging donations, the donor looks good for giving and Mirabel’s message spreads. The measures of success will be $1 million in donations (if 4% of audience donates $5), brand awareness increase of +5%, a 30% increase in supporters across social touch points, securing a number of yearly opt-in donors, and conversions to the 365 Candles “Thank You” page (200,000).

Judges Comments

The judges had a big task trying to select a winner from such a quality field. ‘365 Candles’ came out on top as the entrants really managed to crack the brief, delivering high impact and longevity.