Social Networks through the Singapore Red Cross:

Social Networks through the Singapore Red Cross:
Share Your Blood (2015 Smarties Gold Winner)
This
mobile marketing case describes the understanding of global differences
and similarities and also discusses partnering with others. Receiving
both a Gold and a Silver award in Messaging, Relationship Building/CRM,
Social Impact/Not For Profit, Singapore Red Cross needed to get donors
with specific blood types in a population of just under five million
people. They created an app following an annual blood donation campaign
With
nearly 15,000 app downloads, they discovered 20,000 new donors, 20%
above existing donor base, and that lead to 121,360 blood donations, 21%
above their published target of 100,000 per year. Singapore Red Cross
needed to reach the next generation of blood donors while also
leveraging existing donors social networks. The Red Cross Connection
app synced up with donors Facebook networks, allowing donors to share
alerts with their friends and encourage their networks to donate. The
app also helped locate the nearest donation center and provided FAQs to
first-time donors.
Singapore
Red Cross, with just a $25,000 budget, faced the challenge of raising
the required blood supply in this island city-state off southern
Malaysia. Despite the support of existing blood donors, the growing
demand makes finding new blood donors a critical part of its strategy,
with recruiting Singapore youths key to establishing the next generation
of blood donors. Objectives (KPIs) for the Singapore Red Cross
included:
Increasing total blood donation
Increasing new donor recruitment
Reaching and activating donors for needed blood types
Singapore
Red Cross needed an always-on platform to reach youth and existing
blood donors, as well as a way to empower youth and donors to help
spread the word when specific blood types were needed. This solution
needed to be cost-effective and mobile, to keep young people engaged.
While the target audience for new donor recruitment included many age
groups, the youth were key to recruiting the next generation of regular
blood donors. An insight was that some regular donors would often behave
as advocates, inviting their friends to accompany them to give blood.
With the objectives and challenges in mind, a mobile app was the right
solution. The widespread use of smartphones by Singapore youths, coupled
with in-app push messaging and the ability to interact with popular
social media platforms such as Facebook made a mobile app the practical,
effective choice. The app was built how Facebook is used to crowdsource
help from online friends. From asking for prayers to finding owners for
pets, and even to asking for blood donors for a loved one in need, the
community responds positively when the request is from a friend. The
Singapore Red Cross app was designed to enhance this behavior, uniting
users as a group that commits their personal networks to spread the call
for donors when the need arises. Youths were encouraged to become
lifesavers, whereby the act of sharing blood or sharing the cause on
social media could help save lives. Every donation could save up to
three lives, which the app tracked. Red Cross campaigns had previously
used channels such as print and out-of-home, but due to the cost of
media, these efforts were seasonal and could not be sustained. The
mobile app allows the Singapore Red Cross to have an always-on platform
to activate its donor base, recruit new donors, and call for specific
blood types as needed.
The
Red Cross Connection app was named after the social connections that
the app uses to help activate new and existing donors, as well as in
tribute to the connection blood donors have to the people they help
save. Once installed, app users create their profiles through Facebook
Connect and indicate their blood type. When blood supplies run low,
users receive blood alerts with options to find the nearest blood
donation center and a call to action to share the alert with their
friends on Facebook, the most commonly used social platform in
Singapore. Donors used the app to register their blood donations by
entering a code or scanning a QR code on posters found at blood donation
centers and mobile blood drives. Users get rewarded with a short
animation thanking them for their selfless and noble action. The app
acknowledges user actions on their profiles, tracking the number of
potential lives saved with every donation, as well as the number of
times users have shared alerts.
All app users benefited from offers
from merchant and partner tie-ins (one of the key learning outcomes
from this Chapter) sent through the app messages. App functions included
a message box for blood alerts and other messages from the Red Cross, a
blood donation center locator, FAQs for first-time donors, a QR code
scanner for registering their donations at blood centers, and a friend
invite plus social share functions for inviting more users and spreading
the call for blood on social media, including Facebook and others. As
of early 2016, the Singapore Red Cross Facebook page had 55,000 likes
and so this campaign for blood has been successful, in part due to
MRM/McCann, who also won a Facebook award in the category Social
Technology.
http://www.mmaglobal.com/case-study-hub/case_studies/view/36700
https://www.redcross.sg/
http://mrm-mccann.com/en/index.html
Questions:
1. What other mobile strategies could you consider for this sharing social impact organization?
2.
How could Red Cross in other countries use this case study? In what
ways could they conduct similar campaigns? What about other non-profit
organizations that need donations via crowd sourcing?
3. What is the market impact of a social impact campaign? Besides the obvious benefits, what other benefits do you identify?
To answer this particular question, click the “Week Three Discussion 1” link above. Once you are in the forum, click the Create Thread button to view the question again, as well as, create and submit your answer.

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