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December 1, 2008
Finding Marketing Innovation: The Salvation Army
The economic downturn has lots of people nervous...including charitable organizations fearing a downturn in philanthropy. While there is hope that the downturn will not be catastrophic, leaders are rethinking their approach...and supplying businesses with a great example of marketing innovation.
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For an example, look no further than the Salvation Army. This venerable organization has enlisted the Jonas Brothers to add a youthful face to their organization, then launched their online red kettle program -- a Web gadget that users can load to their own Websites to host a local donation campaign.
Their is no guarantee of success, but IMHO, the campaign is a brilliant example of "not standing still and waiting for disaster to strike." The program leverages a core principle of successful philanthropy, local networking, and uses cost-effective Web 2.0 tools to achieve its goal. The Jonas Brothers tie-in tries to make the Salvation Army something other than a dowdy "old people's" organization. The program brings to life many of the basic concepts of social marketing and applies them to a practical problem.
Sometimes, business marketers try to hard to be clever and miss the obvious opportunities. The Salvation Army shows us all that the brightest ideas are sometimes right in front of us and need only to be supercharged by available technology
Posted by jcioban at December 1, 2008 7:51 AM
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