Busman's holiday; a brilliant example of message & media from NYC

I've just got back from my 10th wedding anniversary trip to New York City.

Mrs DG and I were supposed to go there for our honeymoon, but in the aftermath of 9-11 we decided to show our respect for the city's grief by not going at that time.  We've been many times since we got married and it's a place that I absolutely love.

But as I'm sure all fundraisers do on holiday I'm constantly on the look out for examples of how things are done abroad.

On this trip I was really impressed with this corporate partnership between Heinz and the Wounded Warrior Project, the US version of Help for Heroes.

Before I went on this trip there was a wide ranging discussion in the office about how we need to be much more creative when thinking about the media we use for our clients campaigns. We've had great success with print and TV when it comes to driving response to SMS campaigns, but we really breakthrough with low cost per acquisitions when we test things that aren't so obvious. For example trains, service station toilet doors and changing rooms in high street shops.

We know that potential supporters carry their phone everywhere, we know that the right creative will drive a response in the most peculiar of locations - so we need to think much more creatively about where we place our messages.

Which is why I love this one. Think about it. In the run up to Veterans' Day in all the supermarkets, diners, restaurants and breakfast tables across america was this very simple message.



By texting thanks to the brilliantly sourced shortcode 57000 and Heinz will donate 57 cents.

You can also donate by liking Heinz on Facebook.

There is even a QR Code for smartphone users. As an aside QR Codes get a bad press here in the UK fundraising world, they were everywhere in New York.

This brilliant campaign really got me thinking about how we should be more creative with our corporate partnerships and how we need to constantly be looking for new places to put our messages.

In my mind the response to this was phenomenal, especially on the morning of Veterans' Day in the hundreds of New York diners. Like the one I took these pictures in. I look forward to finding out exactly how successful it was.