A national annual fundraiser

CHALLENGE

Develop an innovative, high-profile sponsorship vehicle that can be exploited year-on-year.

One of the quirky marketing traditions popular across the Caribbean is the sponsoring of roundabouts (or, as North Americans call them, ’traffic circles’). Local companies typically adopt the highly visible traffic features, and, in return for keeping them neat and tidy, get to brand them in sometimes garish and elaborate displays.

Our insurance client, Island Heritage, got the chance to adopt a roundabout of their own on a major new arterial road on Grand Cayman’s busy west side. “How can we maximise the brand exposure?”, they asked us, adding. “and how are you getting on with ideas for our sponsorship strategy?”

SOLUTION

With every obvious sponsorship property in the market already accounted for, the answer was to invent an entirely new category - a mass, drive-by sponsorship. Thus, CharityDrive was born. The simplest of concepts; three deserving local charities are each assigned one of three consecutive days. For every car that uses the roundabout on their particular day, Island Heritage donates a dollar to their cause. The more people the charity can persuade to use the roundabout, the more cash they get. The charities could also earn dollars for Twitter mentions and support registered on the CharityDrive Facebook page.

The aim was to exploit the natural seams of personal connections within the highly segmented and web-enabled local population, particularly via social media. With Island Heritage, we recognised that this was a unique chance to really test the marketing potential of social media in the Cayman Islands.

Supported by a national outdoor, broadcast and print media push and an aggressive online and social media strategy all underwritten by Island Heritage, the charities mobilised their own support networks to do the rest of the promotional heavy lifting.

RESULTS

Response to the first CharityDrive far out-stripped even the most optimistic expectations. With traffic around the roundabout massively boosted, Facebook activity and Twitter mentions ensured that the CharityDrive story - and with it the Island Heritage brand - reached the widest possible audience in the Cayman Islands and far beyond. The charities comfortably reached the maximum donation on offer - $30,000 in total.

Could Island Heritage merely have handed over $30,000 to three charities and saved all the hard work? Sure, but who would have taken notice? CharityDrive generated an exceptional amount of brand exposure not just for Island Heritage but also for three needy charities who could never have done the same on their own. Not to mention the fun everyone had.

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