CASE STUDY: How to sell social justice in Taiwan

Background

The International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF) is a Taiwanese non-profit organisation which supports socio-economic development projects in less-advantaged developing countries. The problem the organisation faced was the general apathy of Taiwanese youths, who are less interested in social justice than other pursuits in their lives.

Mediabrands was tasked with recruiting young people to volunteer their time for a range of humanitarian affairs.

While brands have embraced social media marketing, the jostle to be noticed on portals such as Facebook and Yahoo (which are the strongest online platforms in the Taiwanese market) is sometimes backfiring.

Particularly for Facebook, online users are typically flooded by the social clutter created by a plethora of brands fighting for the attention of the individual, against both the brands' competitors and against the individual's own friends.

Mediabrands decided to use the social intimacy of MSN Instant Messenger to start a dialogue between IM users and ICDF. This was a first attempt at any kind of digital marketing for the conservative NGO, which has in the past relied on niche literary and academic publications to promote its causes.

Execution

Targeting digital natives, Mediabrands Taiwan sought to connect with the 8 million MSN users on a more direct and personal level. Given a tight budget of less than US$8,500 (TWD$250,000) for the digital campaign, Mediabrands purchased space for a simple ad banner on the popular instant messenging tool.

In the first wave of the MSN-driven campaign executed during 24 April to 14 May 2011, the rationale was to engage an already captivated audience, with fewer disruptions caused by other social media engagement tools.

More importantly, Facebook, due to its scattered focus, was deemed unsuitable since the topic at hand was a serious one. In fact, only three people 'liked' ICDF's Facebook page.

Results

The click-through-rate (CTR) of the basic banner ad was a surprisingly high 0.77 per cent, compared to a norm averaging closer to 0.3 per cent in most cases.

ICDF received almost 300 responses from youths across Taiwan who clicked on the banner and were directed to an online form where they could sign up to pledge their time and services - higher than the original target of 180 volunteers.