So many different associations in the world are created in order to help protecting human rights, life and health… But The Red Cross is probably the most important of them. Everybody heard of it !
The Red Cross was born in 1864 by the initiative of Henry Dunant in Genève, Switzerland. (We can notice that the Red Cross logo and the Swiss flag really look alike…)
Red Cross Logo Flag of Switzerland
Since its creation in 1863, the ICRC’s sole objective has been to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife. Two others assocations for women were created, and it’s finally in 1940 than the 3 associations merged to become the French Red Cross, an independent charity working alongside governments and public authorities.
The Red Cross started as a French association created by a Swiss citizen, and became “The International committee of the Red Cross” as it expanded globally abroad. It is the largest humanitarian network in the world nowadays. The “Movement” is made up of the following components: the International Committee of the Red Cross, the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies”
The main mission of the association is to alleviate human suffering, protect life, health, and human rights. As the respect of humanity is their goal, their missions are really diverse: addressing sexual violence, Building respect for the law, cooperating with national societies, economic security, forensic science and humanitarian actions, health, humanitarian diplomacy, helping detainees, migrants, protecting civilians, water and habitat, working with corporate sector…
Let’s summarize it in three main actions: urgency and first aid, social and health action, international action.
The association steps in 35 countries with more than 56,000 volunteers and 18,000 employees. Each year, it helps more than one million of people.
Marketing and Communication Strategy of the Red Cross
The Red Cross needs people’s support to be more and more efficient in their mission. Getting people’s attention is not always easy, especially for association, where a part of the funds is brought by the generosity and donation of people.
The association developped a branding strategy based on original advertising campaign in each country they are present. Most of the time, they use feelings and humor to touch people, make them laugh, but also shock them and make them react. Let’s focus on their advertising strategy and illustrate with their campaigns in different countries.
In France, the association seems to have adopted the same kind of marketing strategies as a large merchandising company. There are only two differences:
- on the budget : the Red Cross cannot afford to spend as much on advertising as a large company, says Jean-François Riffaud (Red Cross speaker). “our advertising budget is non comparable with the one of a large private company which can invest 40 millions euros in an advertising campaign, when we can hardly spend 400 000 euros on advertising space purchasing.
- on the value proposition: “we already do have an history, we do not have to invent one” (Riffaud). There is no need for the Red Cross to insist on (invent) the generosity, value, and solidarity values, as these values are inherent to the organisation mission.
The Red Cross understood how the social media became a powerful tool to make the information become viral and get people’s attention. Their strategy focuses on relationship marketing, synonymous with innovation and proximity to potential donors. They understood that social networks will help them to have a better impact, using one of their most powerful tool to make people think and not feeling guilty: humor. Indeed, how to treat a delicate information without making people feel bad or guilty about it ? Humor. Because bringing positive feelings will make people think and remember the ad, and then act.
In 2014, during the National Days of Solidarity of the Red Cross that happen every year, the association launched a campaign in order to raise funds and volunteers. They asked differents celebrities to be part of the campain: Norman, a famous french Youtuber who is very popular among teenagers and Selah Sue, a belgium singer. They ask them to compare the number of “likes” they have on social media to the one of the Red Cross. Thus, this comparison enables people to think about their behavior and motivation to give support to someone. Using social medias and celebrities allows The Red Cross to reach a larger target than simply adults: teenagers and young adults.
They also ask volunteers to give to people in the street some cards with little challenges to do during their day: “today, I help an old person to shop”, “today, I give a toy to a children who doesn’t have one” This action focuses on solidarity and care about others, so that people feel better by helping someone else.
As we said, humor is the best weapon for the Red Cross in order to catch people’s attention. Here are some ads of the Red Cross that shows this model, playing on words or famous TV shows. The first one is an ad from the Spanish Red Cross, showing an “ordinary hero” in her daily life, to show that people who help and are volunteers at the Red Cross are actually true heros. The second one is from the American Red Cross and uses humor with the “vampire” trend in movies and TV shows in order to encourage people to give their blood in order to save others.
However, the association can also uses dark humor. The ad is playing on a web phenomenon called “Harlem Shake”, where people used to shake on the music.“Diarrhoea kills a child every 20 seconds. It is also worthy of the buzz. “To get this message shock, the French Croix Rouge took over the codes, lighter, Harlem Shake with this video designed by Rapp France, and broadcast on YouTube. Worldwide, 2.6 billion people lack access to toilets at their place of living: health conditions that favour the most devastating epidemics. The video debate, but at least allowed to break the silence on this issue. Sometimes, to shock people can also be an issue, but if we look at all the Red Cross ad campains, they remained mostly focused on humor and fun rather than shoking people.
In 2012, The Red Cross in Poland organized a suprising and catching campain: they made a partnership with luxury brand to put in their shop a plate with food sold as a luxury good for its normal price. In this way, they want to enhance the fact that food is still a luxury good in some countries in need and that one child by four doesn’t eat one’s fill. It proposed to send a message to make a donation for a hot meal. With this campaign, the red cross collected 350,000PLN (around 85,000€), which allow to offer a meal to 100,000 children. The information also came on social media and really touched people about how their real need actually is: eat in order to live and have a good health.
The Red Cross also uses famous representants as their ambassadors in order to give a good image of the brand. For example, in France, the model Adriana Karambeu has been an ambassador of the Red Cross for 15 years, and regularly participate in the different ad campains to promote donations and volunteers, always using humor.
You can find another example of this video campaign here
The association even used experiential marketing to raise funds. In swedish airport, you can pay as much as you want to play Space Invaders, Pac-Man ou Galaga on game machines, and the money is used to fund The Red Cross actions. In this way, people feel involved and live a good experience they will link with the association, it will make them feel better supplying funds with fun.
In 2011, they also used what they called “Gamification tactic”:whenever you give something to the Red Cross France, you receive a pin’s. It is possible online too.Thus, they used recognition need to incite the youngers to make a donation.
Last, but not least, in Monaco, the prince Louis II of Monaco created in 1948 a ball called “Gala de la Croix Rouge”. It’s a very selective night with a $1000 meal in order to raise funds for the association. A lot of famous people participate each year to this gala. The picture shows the actual prince of Monaco, Albert and his family for the Gala in 2012
All those tools have only one goal: to help the Red Cross raising more funds and encourage new volunteers, so that its action can become more and more important.
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Amazing post guys thank you for your work
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Very well job. I hope you will post new articles asap
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