Why the #nomakeup selfie craze has worked...

In the past 24 hours social media has been flooded with hundreds posting no make-up selfies, including the young, the old and the male!

So grab a make-up wipe, join the craze and nominate your friends because the #Breastcancerawareness campaign is working and here is why...

The purpose of any campaign is to achieve a goal and raise brand awareness. Without awareness on a topic how can we react to the cause?

If the selfies had not gone viral would you have thought about breast cancer today? The answer is probably not. 

So the debate that the #nomakeupselfie has caused from being 'pointless' is beyond me, when just a couple of months ago the nation was participating in Dry-anuary. Another campaign that generates awareness on the organization 'Alcohol concern', which encourages us to stay off the booze throughout January in aid of the #Dryathon. We could debate that this campaign is also 'pointless' as it is not necessarily a fundraising exercise, it can just be for health whilst promoting 'Alcohol concern'.

Lets look at another campaign, #Movember. How many guys participate in this trend and grow a moustache? Do all of them donate to Prostate Cancer?

In an ideal world every brand, charity or organization that raised awareness would like a sale, a donation or end result but promoting the name comes first in any instance. Without awareness on who they are, how are they going to benefit?

It's easy for us to think a campaign targeted to women, to check their breasts would be more compelling, but the question is would it be trending and would it make BBC news? Now that #BreastCancer has our attention, it will be easier for them to get any message out. Especially as their social media following has increased since the selfie craze.

I think the campaign is a great idea and it's nice to see so many women participating (even if some have utilised Instagram for a 'natural' tint!).

Although, Cancer Research UK states they have no idea where the campaign from, few charities have jumped on board and you can text 'Beat it' to 70099 to donate.

One charity claims they have received unprecedented levels of donations since the trend, helping them raise over £15,000! Read more here 

5 reasons why brand awareness is crucial:

- Brand awareness is the process of building the brand and informs customers about the business
- Allows customers to recognize and remember the brand & logo
- Ad strategies result in increased sales and repeat business
- People like to give money to brands they trust
- Creates a long term position in the marketplace

FREE popcorn!

It is not often you get a flyer initiating FREE popcorn, so once I heard about it, I quickly paced over to the stand which surprisingly was a black tent with arrows saying 'this way'.

As soon as I got in the tent there was an Australian lady with 2 pots of popcorn. She asked me to choose one pot, in which I did and found it was empty! The lady asked me to think about poverty and how children must feel when they have no food. This definitely made me analyze what just happened.

 

I was given a stamp and a wrist band, which made me think about it for the rest of the day. I also told my friends and got the attention from locals when they asked why I have a stamp.  

This campaign was from World Vision in the fight to end world poverty, in association with Cineworld and MK Xscape.

Marketers are looking for the best price related promotions and as a consumer we look to buy products on offer and although this was a short term gain, I still wanted free popcorn! 

It was very creative of World Vision and I'll be thinking of a similar way to entice passers by and give them something to think about...

Charitable Events are great for any organisation.

My recent project was to host and organise a large handmade and vintage fair for the company 'Experience the country' in aid of Cancer Research. The reason for this event was because Experience the Country are a newly established organisation, and they need to create awareness, on their fantastic services. Although the company have been doing everything they can to gain publicity customer bookings have still remained at a minimum.

Lately the team have been concerned with the fact people can no longer afford luxuries, like experience days out, and with the trend in vintage fairs it was seen a great opportunity to utilise the 800 acres of countryside land and host the fair to ideally get the public in. By publicising the event on the company website, corporate blog, Facebook and Twitter, as well as printing posters and leaflets, and generating word of mouth the event was thought to have a high influx of people on the day.

Eventually 20 stalls were sold at £10.00 each, which is one of the cheapest rates on the market, so thats 20 people's friends/family all in the know of the Hounslow hall handmade & Vintage fair. The stalls varied from clothes, jewellery, accessories, cards, paintings, flowers and cupcakes. To cater for children a Vintage ice-cream van was also invited along with a face painter. 

The Vintage fair ended up being a great success which made my planning and preparation worthwhile! I was on a high all day! 

Hundreds of people entered the door, some of which would never have visited the location, had there not been a vintage fair on. It was great to see so many people wanting to support Cancer Research with £1 entry fee, but it was also great for Experience the Country to talk to individuals about the type of experience's on offer. As a result of this the operations manager did trial run's in the off road 4x4 military truck so guests could have a taster in the hope of a return on investment. They would then book up and pay to drive the truck themselves. 

***Experience the Country managed to raise £243.00 to Cancer Research***

I would definitely recommend a charitable event for any organisation because:

• It is a great way to get the public in.
• Attracts a wide target audience of all age ranges.
• Targets potential customers and creates recognition for the brand.
• Definitely makes the brand identity look good.
• Allows the audience to meet the team face to face.
• Gives team members the opportunity to talk about what they do.
• Enables FREE publicity.

• Encourages people to publicise by word of mouth because it is for charity.
• People are likely to give feedback on the company from the service they provided.
• Helps the company gain more contacts.

Experience the country thanked all stall holders personally through e-mail and received e-mails back stating their appreciation and gratitude for being invited to the event. The company also received lots of feedback on Facebook and Twitter that suggested hundreds of people had a great day.

This is excellent for the new business because they can now remember Experience the Country for the Cancer Research Vintage Fair.

I generated a Survey to gain more feedback which I have posted to Facebook and Twitter. The results will be taken into consideration for the next upcoming event. I am hoping to host a Christmas Fair in aid of a different charity to attract people interested in sponsoring that particular charity.

When people left the event I was issuing Christmas flyers!