For this final project, I was required to select a topic relevant to an organisation, a brand or an issue, and then conduct market research, strategise, and create a ‘big idea’ -all expressed as an integrated campaign proposal (including elements of both Public Relations and Advertising). In my case, I chose a charity organisation Oxfam on behalf of Oxfam’s PR in-house team.
As we all know, Oxfam is a charity organisation. It is a global movement of people united by one goal, which is to end the poverty for everyone. Oxfam has been very successful. In just 15 years, extreme poverty has been halved. In order to continue good work at Oxfam, the organization needs help whether it is donating money, clothes or just donating the time and volunteer with the charity. Without these aspects it will not succeed. We need more people, more supporters in order to deliver our goal, which is end of extreme poverty.
Therefore, the main focus of this campaign is to appeal to young people and how Oxfam can be seen as a place where they can learn the skills. The objectives of this campaign are:
However, before any further action, the situation analysis has been conducted in order to find out more relevant facts and statistics. The situation analysis indicates that there is an issue with volunteering and that there are not so many young people, who volunteer.
Therefore, our target audience is young people between the ages 16-25. They are very important when it comes to volunteering. From psychological point of view is believed that “if we get people participating in social action at a young age, then they will continue to do that for the rest of their lives”. Oxfam would like to engage with young people, especially through the Oxfam charity shops. They offer different roles, which young people might not know about such as window dressing, serving customers, organizing pop up shop events, sorting donations, managing the social media.
The target audience insight or the reasons why young people will not volunteer are following:
Therefore the strategy and big idea of this campaign is to persuade young people to volunteer at Oxfam charity shops. Telling them about the benefits of volunteering such as – making a difference, giving back to the community, and developing new skills. The message of this campaign is:
The big idea and the whole message are based on storytelling. The narrative is that young people are powerful. Together with Oxfam they can make a change and help to end the poverty. That means the heroes in our story are young people vs. the enemy, which is the poverty. How to win this battle? Simply by donating their time and volunteering in Oxfam charity shops.
Oxfam would like to introduce Oxfam Heroes. Young people, who have the powers and are ready to use them and fight against poverty. Oxfam needs all sorts of heroes, who have the power to tweet, manage social media; they can merchandise window displays etc. They are human and kind, Oxfam humankind. Oxfam wants to show how important young people are. They safeguard charity’s future, they’re experts in new technology, video creation, social media, they bring a fresh and youthful dynamic to Oxfam charity shops. This is logo (Good timing to use Emoji-like superheroes with the current ‘Power Rangers’ movie release) of this campaign:
The goal of the media relations is to communicate the campaign’s key message using appropriate media channels. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram would be the best channels to engage with the target audience.
On these platforms, there will be posts about Oxfam Heroes and exciting job roles, which young people can do in Oxfam charity shops.
There will be a link to the website, where they can find all the information as well as application form. So they can look up their local Oxfam charity shop and send the application form. There will be posters and flyers available in our Oxfam shops.
To take a step further, Oxfam would collaborate with twins Jack and Finn Harries, who run the YouTube channel JacksGap that has more than 180 million views and over 4 million subscribers. They both have done a lot of charity work, which is documented on their YouTube channel. We would like them to make a vlog about volunteering in Oxfam charity shops.
They would film themselves doing shifts in charity shops in London. Jack and Finn would be our Oxfam heroes to the rescue. The vlog would really spread our message across and engage with our target audience. It will show young people how exciting is to be the Oxfam volunteer.
We want to let people know about Oxfam’s collaboration with Jack and Finn. Therefore, we will write the press release:
We will send out the press release to local press as well as national press in order to gain the media coverage:
Moreover, there will be our Oxfam volunteers in heroes costumes on the street giving the information about volunteering in Oxfam charity shops and job roles, which young people can do. They will be handing out flyers and wristbands with our campaign logo.
Everything together, the big idea, strategy and tactics mentioned previously will show the target audience how exciting volunteering can be and how many different roles they can fit in. By interacting with them via social media, we will encourage young people to volunteer in our shops.
This is 3 months campaign plan. The campaign will start at the beginning of January. We believe that in this time of year many people will have their resolutions and volunteering could be one way to become a better person. In the middle of January, we want to write our press release launching our campaign and announcing the collaboration with Jack and Finn. At the end of January, they will be doing their shifts in our charity shops in London. In the middle of the February, they will release the vlog on their YouTube channel. At the end of February our Oxfam Heroes will be on the streets. Updating and engaging on social media will be throughout the whole campaign and promotional materials will be also available throughout the whole campaign.
The total cost of this campaign is £5,560. We will have to pay for distribution of our flyers and posters and for the promotional materials, such as wristbands and Oxfam heroes T-shirts. There will be around 60 volunteers and their allowance is £360, £6 for each to cover, the food and travel costs.
To evaluate and measure the success of this campaign and if we are going to reach our goals which were to promote volunteering at Oxfam charity and therefore increase the number of young people volunteering. We need to collect the data from Oxfam shop reports on how many people applied for voluntary positions. We would look at our social media sites, e.g. Facebook page insights, Twitter and Instagram analytics as well as the number of views of the YouTube video and Oxfam website traffic.
Nikola Do Anh 