Finally, a Fresh Idea
It’s easy for marketers to fall in line; One duck after the other swimming to keep up with the one breaking ground with a new marketing idea.
Purchases that trigger a charitable donation are just such an example. Some smart marketer long ago thought up the idea. Now consumers can’t walk into a store without tripping over a pitch to buy one thing and donate to another. And while it’s all for good causes, it’s stale, moldy, boring marketing. Consumers do want companies to look out for others and will support them, but innovation will make these promotions work harder. Isn’t that the point?
Enter Disney.
Disney’s offer to give 1 million free tickets to its parks to people who complete a day of volunteer work is ingenious.
For the behemoth that’s typically tightfisted in offering discounts, it will deliver mouse-houses full of goodwill. It will bring sales to its parks, hit hard by recession. Sales were down 7% to $26.3 million for the nine months ended June 27, compared to the same year-ago period. The Parks and Resorts business segment fell 8% to $7.8 million. CEO Robert A. Iger citied the “tough global economy” for the negative impact on sales.
Volunteers who complete the work will bring paying friends who will buy T-shirts and rainbow-colored ice pops. Guests who never dreamed they could afford to pay the $79 one-day pass for a 10-year-old to spend a day wandering down jungle paths or getting a hug from Cinderella will arrive.
To enable people to volunteer, Disney partnered with HandsOn Network, the nation’s largest volunteer network that has 250 centers across the country and connects volunteers to more than 70,000 nonprofit agencies. The offer begins Jan. 1, 2010, when people can sign up to volunteer, complete the work and then use the tickets.
The work, in addition to helping many worthy causes, will be a great experience for kids who have never volunteered before; a lesson in helping others that could instill a lifetime of such work. There will be projects that families can work on together and they can choose projects they are passionate about.
Disney gained a lot of attention from the press, mommy bloggers, tweeters and others who quickly spread word of the “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” promo. But it is also gaining attention for coming up with a marketing ploy unlike any other in recent memory.
Disney now leads the string of ducks. Will the others blindly swim along behind, or strike out on their own paving the way for new marketing innovation?
September 30th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Great post Patty. I was watching TV last night and saw a commercial for this campaign and thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea. I’ll be curious to see how many people take them up on the offer. The marketing/PR opportunities for this campaign are tremendous.
October 1st, 2009 at 10:36 am
While clearly a “response-oriented” effort, it is interesting to note that even the title “Give a day, get a Disney day” makes a brand statement — implying that a Disney day is far better than any ordinary day. Would expect nothing less from Disney. Thanks for posting!
October 1st, 2009 at 10:54 am
Brilliant! We also tried to twist the standard formula. When you visit our cancer recovery greeting card site www.kimokards.com you can actually choose the charity that your donation gets directed to.