Brand Challenge
Develop a marketing strategy for Refilwe Community Project to
attract andengage with donors.
Brief Objective
Insight
Branding is inside-out.
Big Idea
Give Meaning Back.
Refilwe Community Project is a Christian organisation, which forms part of the social sector. They rely heavily on donations as a form of income to run all of their programmes. They currently run 11 programs – primarily focusing on improving children’s lives. Their aim is to encourage children and their families to grow in their personal, academic and spiritual development, through participation in their programs.
Refilwe Community Project had approached us with the following tasks: to build awareness of the brand and their program offerings, communicate their new tagline ‘Inspire, uplift, empower and thrive’, position the brand in the eyes of their donors and partners as a positive and impactful presence within the community, increase their monetary donations, engage with existing donors, shift their brand image away from being an orphanage and emphasise the respective programs that they offer, increase their international presence, improve their internal communications, and keep the Red Refilwe character on their logo while adding an element of an African feel to their overall design.
The challenge that they have faced is that the market has been saturated with “feed a child” and “stop hunger now” campaigns, which have caused people to become immune to this message, as it no longer tugs at the heart strings of people and their wallets.
Refilwe Community Project has also not had a focused long term marketing strategy that was actionable, which resulted to low awareness and therefore a lack of donations.
In order to develop a clear strategy going forward we conducted both primary and secondary research.
Our research objectives were to identify communication opportunities for Refilwe Community Project; to identify the appropriate target audiences for Refilwe Community Project; to identify consumer behaviour trends that may be relevant; to identify communication trends that Refilwe Community Project can leverage to become more engaged with their audience; and to identify relevant internal branding solutions.
Our first key finding was that the brand identity and image was not aligned, which gave us the insight that it is a result of an unclear understanding of the brand identity and blueprint internally.
From this our key issue was how do we then ensure that the brand’s internal stakeholders have a clear view of what the brand stands for, who the brand is and what its purpose is as well?
Another key finding that we identified was that there is an opportunity for industry knowledge sharing and expansion available to NPO’s to collaborate opportunity for industry knowledge expansion and for NPO’s to collaborate.
This led to the insight that NPO’s exist in a sector that is there to improve the lives of society, therefore there is no need for competition when they are able to assist one another. This resulted in the issue of how we can leverage potential industry collaboration opportunities within the industry?
Our last key finding was that 81% of people, surveyed online, do not know who Refilwe Community Project is and what they do. A large number of the people surveyed are willing to support NPOs, therefore there is a gap in the market. Social good travel is a trend as consumers seek sustainable solutions for modern day issues.
The insight we gained from this is that actively contributing towards future generations being able to have access to resources and a liveable environment is socially relevant and trendy.
Refilwe means ‘we are given’, what about their story can anybody relate to, which we are all given? We are all given life, it is what we all have in common. We want to allow people to show gratitude by fulfilling their purposes’ in life. With use of the name Refilwe we are want to tell stories, because through storytelling we are able to inspire, uplift, empower and thrive. Emotive stories that inspire people are those tell the story of the underdog’s journey to becoming a hero, with Refilwe Community Project being the underdog, therefore we are giving meaning to Refilwe Community Project.
​
By personifying Refilwe through the use of storytelling, we convey how Refilwe’s meaning is in her name.
Internal: By redesigning the brand’s logo and incorporating the brand story into it. African elements have been introduced in both executions to further anchor Refilwe’s identity as a ‘child of the soil’.
External: “Give meaning back” across multiple social media platforms, this integrated framework is modelled to maximize reach on the social media platform.
For Refilwe Community Project we propose that the media square has a higher concentration of reach and impact, which should result in higher brand awareness and the target audience engagement should also increase.
- Reach: 35%
- Frequency: 20%
- Time: 15%
- Impact: 30%
​
As result of the limited budget, the time-frame of the campaign would be compressed and the frequency of the message would need to accommodate the reach we expect to achieve.
To gain a better awareness on Refilwe Community Project, we believe that Facebook is the most appropriate social media platform, as this plays a big part within the South African market to market and position brands. In 2016, there were 13 million users on Facebook in South Africa. On this platform we would implement a monthly updated mini-series of the Refilwe's story. These will begin with introductory episodes that explain the new tagline "Inspire, uplift, empower and thrive". There will be 8 episode to introduce each word of the tagline, then illustrate how Refilwe has been able to apply the lessons. The final episode of the web-series would be user-generated, as consumers would participate in what they envision for Refilwe as she thrives, prompted by the call to action in the 7th episode.
​
In order to match the web series, we will have ambient media in Rosebank Mall, where consumers will be able to participate in painting the unfinished mural of Refilwe's story, which would change in accordance with each theme of the episodes.
​
We intend on solidify Refilwe Community Project's new look and feel by incorporating the Refilwe girl into their existing website and making it more user-friendly, in terms of web navigation.
As indicated by the campaign expenditure graph, we intend to extend the campaign internally and externally from September 2016 to August 2017.
​
The majority of our expenses occur in the beginning of the campaign, as production costs would be covered in this stage as well as re-branding efforts. From there in January, March, May and July activations will be conducted to promote the web series. These efforts will be supported by Facebook advertising to gain traction.