No budget? Ask Richard!
One of the biggest challenges designers face is coming up with effective campaigns on only a small budget. While reading up on the 2010 Australian Effie Awards in this months edition of B&T magazine, one of the winners stood out as a great example of how creative thinking can tackle this issue. Sydney independent radio station, FBi, was in financial trouble and needed over $500,000 to get out of debt… they also had a budget of $0.00 to raise funds. Knowing that the station’s supporters were often cash-poor and only a small portion of listeners showed their support with donations, FBi needed to target someone who had a greater financial capacity. And who better than music-loving billionaire, Richard Branson?
From this idea, the ‘Ask Richard’ campaign began. Supporters were offered a prize of $50,000 to get Richard’s attention and convince him to give FBi $1 million. And so, supporters baked cupcakes, jumped out of planes, made signs, wore masks, staged protests, invented “Rich Bran” breakfast cereal, wrote songs and went nuts with Photoshop. Even though Richard didn’t donate the money, the campaign generated enough interest to raise over $680,000 in donations from other sources.
Check out the ‘Ask Richard’ blog here.
Yours in Design,
Anya
