Many of you might have noticed some blunt TV ads by People for Good, a not for profit organization (“rest assured, we’re not asking for money, we just want you to donate a little generosity”), created by Mark Sherman and Zak Mroueh, that’s goal is to “make the world a better place, one good deed at a time”. Their most popular ad features a man offering his seat to a pregnant woman on the subway, along with other ads that mock aggressive stall parking. The experiment has thus far been tweeted 988 times and recommended on Facebook 6000 times.
Many have praised the campaign in news articles. However, others say that its not doing enough. Either way, it has captured the attention of the market and drawn thousands to its sight with the simple goal: “to make the world a better place”. By using the marketing process, Sherman and Mroueh were able to capture customer value. Using a mix of social
media and television/print ads, the duo were able to reach out to everyone since their “product” is universally applicable to all age groups, genders, and races. They differentiated themselves by not putting blame or pushing consumers to donate like other charities/not for profits, merely to just give someone a hug. The company then used its followers to implement consumer-generated marketing by proposing a 7 day good deed challenge where participants posted their experiences across YouTube. People for Good was able to build such an integrated design by reaching out to other companies who donated their time and effort to produce quality products. Because the ads aren’t intrusive and simply aim to spread the message of good deeds customers are captured and post/blog results religiously, bringing a project that was suppose to last from June 29-August 21 to continue on. Long live good deeds.
Let’s not fool ourselves: saying that we are in favour of ‘good’ is like saying that we are in favour of oxygen. The ‘large response’ is not so much due to the power of such an innocuous message but because millions of dollars have been spent on advertising (billboards, newspapers, etc.). This is why “customers are captured”, as you say. But instead of mindlessly cheerleading for it, one should be noting how that this campaign, if it were truly concerned with doing ‘good’ in the world (i.e. eliminating child poverty, reducing pollution & global warming, halting corporate corruption, exploitation of the third world, etc.), would then be focused on the POLITICAL as the realm in which positive changes must be made. As it is, the ‘people for Good’ campaign – by avoiding the fundamentally POLITICAL nature of most problems in the world – seeks to maintain the (broken) status quo through encouraging frenetic ‘nice’ activity to no actual end (except making people feel ‘good’ about themselves). As such, there is nothing actually Good (in the sense of making an actual, lasting, systemic change for the better) about this campaign, and much to be said that is actually ‘bad’.