Video + Text + Guerilla Marketing = Cool Idea
Marilyn Farmer, the Executive Director of our client MorningStar Mission, recently gave me a heads up on an idea put in place by Pathways to Housing in New York. Did you see the article on philanthropy.com?
Video of a shimmering homeless man was projected onto a wall with a message above him asking passersby to text a code and get the man off the street.
Once the viewer texted the code the projected message chnaged to show the organization’s website and it triggered a different video loop where the man got up off the ground and walked through a door to symbolize him finding housing.
The person who texted then recevied another text from the charity asking if it wanted to contribute $5 by texting to another number and having the $5 added to their phone bill.
To me this is a very cool idea. Creative. Different. Outside-the-box type of stuff. But how’d it do?
This projection video ran for three nights in March in nine different locations in Manhattan. 200 people texted and 30 people donated. It’s a great idea that netted $150. My first question is: Why not more? If nine locations over 3 nights in Manhattan only prompted 200 text messages then I’d want to find different locations with more foot traffic.
I applaud and love this idea…but like every idea, we have to learn how to improve its ROI.
How would you improve this idea? Let me know at david@i5810media.com
dave – two things come to mind:
1) In social situations, there are a number of studies that observe that people will adapt to the social norm. That is, if someone walks up on the scene, and the first 2-3 people standing there are giving, then the newcomer will be more likely to give. This type of peer behavior is pretty well known, so the question is: how do you start the effect in an uncontrolled environment?
2) Making the homeless person personal. Here is where you can do magic, in stead of just showing an anonymous homeless person, you could show an interview of a homeless person, and tell their story.
My 2cents.
joe