Sprott students go viral to give kids a CHANCE
A team of five undergraduate students in Anahit Armenakyan’s New Tools and Approaches in Marketing (BUSI 3204) class recently put their marketing skills to practice for a term project, where students were required to create a viral marketing campaign for an organization. Whatever tools the group decided to implement, there had to be a hook to make the viewer want to click, share or like it using various social media channels.
The group consisting of Victoria Dam, Konval Matin, Hiroko Mayuzumi, Syed Rahman and Erica Tim chose the CHANCE Foundation for their assignment. Matin had recently heard CHANCE president and co-founder Shannon Tessier speak at an event held by the Carleton Entrepreneurship Association and suggested the organization to her group.
Launched in 2007, the CHANCE Foundation (Charity of Hope to Assist Needy Children Everywhere) is an Ottawa-based, volunteer, not-for-profit organization with a two-tiered scope: to engage youth in Ottawa by promoting the rewarding nature of giving back to the community, and to ensure all children have access to proper medical attention, educational opportunities as well as the chance to play and be a kid.
The group approached Tessier who quickly agreed.
“The timing was perfect because we had been searching for someone who could do a Youtube video for us and all of a sudden it fell into our lap,” says Tessier.
The group considered interviewing the children assisted by the charity for their video, but realized that parents would probably not consent to having their children on camera.
In their background research for the campaign, the group found other organizations with similar goals tended to use negative message to influence the viewer to make a donation. However, the students decided to use a different approach.
“It was difficult to portray the needs of these underprivileged children without making viewers feel guilty,” says Matin. “To overcome this obstacle, we decided to use a positive tone. We wanted the viewers to feel nostalgic about their childhood while understanding these children’s needs.”
For the video, the group interviewed fellow students about their favourite childhood memories. While doing so, Hiroko Mayuzumi came to realize that sending a positive message was just as strong as sending a negative one.
The group’s positive approach proved to be successful.
“The first day the video was released, our website stats more than tripled!” says Tessier. “We also did a second round of promotion about a week later and our website stats doubled. There was a clear difference in our website activity on days when we actively promoted the video on Facebook, Twitter and by email to supporters, friends and family.”
Victoria Dam noted the importance of networking and social media skills, especially for non-profit organizations. “They’re essential to promotion, especially if you have a very limited budget,” says Dam. Tessier agrees.
“An educational experience for all those involved and a charity which was able to get its message out to a wider audience. This is exactly the type of partnership which strengthens a youth-based charity such as ours.”