In today’s changing development landscape, international aid organizations face a huge challenge: How can they attract as much attention as possible to their advocacies and campaigns without breaking the bank?
Take the case, for instance, of Save the Children’s recent “sexy ad” campaign. The video featured regular models in a typical studio reading poverty statistics in a sensual — albeit awkward — voice. The clip went viral on YouTube and social media, so the impact was overwhelming both in terms of making development issues relevant and defying the convention of “sadvertising” or “guilty marketing” that have characterized campaigns of nongovernmental organizations in the past.
Ettore Rossetti, digital marketing and social media director at Save the Children USA, told Devex the campaign’s three goals — views, likes and dislikes ratio, and comments — were met within a month of the video’s release. The clip got 3.6 million views over the initial goal of 400,000, as well as 60 comments per 100,000 views, 20 more than the target.