The Campaign

The traditional formula of sympathy has had only a limited appeal in terms of generating donations for Special Olympics. To involve new people, we moved away from sympathy with Special Olympics first campaign “Sponsored By You”. A campaign that gives back to our donors in the Special Olympics spirit of inclusion - we turned an ordinary donor into a brand that sponsors The Special Olympics. We give sponsors the chance to create their own logo and a manifesto video. The logos would feature on the merchandise the athletes wear, event merchandise and various communications about Special Olympics. Each sponsor’s manifesto video serves as the official video of the Special Olympics, made by the donors for Special Olympics. An ordinary faceless donor now has the chance to be a recognised brand that supports the athletes in Special Olympics. Way more than karma points!

Creative Execution

We created a campaign microsite to serve as the platform for people to learn more about Special Olympics, donate and become a sponsor. Upon donating, we transform a donor to sponsor with the ability create their own brand logo that would ultimately be used on athlete merchandise, and Special Olympics communication. These sponsors also had a chance to make their own manifesto video to show their support for the athletes. These videos would contain their personalised logos and each served as the official manifesto video of the Special Olympics. These personalised logos and sports manifestos vidoe can then be shared on social media through the plugins, inviting more people to be official sponsors of the Special Olympics.

Our campaign launched on 1st August, 2017 centered around the website, with a digital marketing campaign kicking in from mid August. As of 17th August, initial reactions have been extremely positive: ? Comparing website performance during the beta (mid – end July) and launch (1st – 17th Aug) phase, we have seen a dramatic increase in traffic and interest in the Special Olympics: o Pages/session: Improved by 25.88% o Avg. Session Duration: Improved by 94.98% o Bounce Rate: Decrease by 19.19% o Ave time spend: Improved from 57 sec to 1min 48Sec ? Does this traffic lead to actual donations towards Special Olympics? Yes, to date we have 140 Special Olympics Sponsors! From June to 17 August (Inclusive Beta site period June to July 2017) o 86 Unique logos generated to be shared on Facebook to demonstrate support o 54 donors, of which 21 from 1 to 17 August, 2017

Our past donation patterns revealed that selflessness was practiced by only a few and it was these few people who regularly donated to Special Olympics. It was always a challenge to encourage newer people to donate. Our strategy to involve new people was simple – Give something in return to those who give. We moved the conversation beyond sympathy and goodwill. In return for donations, we provided a feel good personalised logo and branded video, which when shared, would earn them social points and new donors to us.