Between May 5 and May 21, 2015, TOMS a California based
footwear and eyewear company did something pretty legendary on Instagram. They
had an initiative called “One day without shoes” where they encouraged
instagrammers to upload a picture of themselves barefoot with the hashtag
#withoutshoes. With each picture uploaded they would donate a pair of shoes to
a child in need. Their goal was to give out a Million Shoes.
Tom’s is a company that is known for its philanthropy as
every pair of shoes that the company sells, a new pair of shoes is given to a
child in need. A portion of the profit in their eyewear sales is also given
towards restoration of eyesight among people in developing countries. What was
unique about this campaign was that TOMS was not asking their customers to
purchase their shoes. It was not just a campaign, they had launched a collective
movement. By the end of the period TOMS had a path breaking 296,243 entries for
the initiative with each entry having a unique individual touch about each
individuals support towards children’s health and educations. This big story
comprised of 3 million stories.
This particular event was of interest to me because of how
they harnessed Instagram as a media platform to encourage stories by tapping
into a human need. Human beings always
seek identification. In this case everybody involved in the initiative
identified with the larger cause that also made them feel good about themselves
as well as the company. This resulted in a lot of earned media for the company
as most entries also congratulated TOMS for their initiative, which resulted in
a lot of positive publicity. It was a clear case of “Do good by doing good”
Link: http://www.toms.com/one-day-without-shoes
Personally TOMS, You took my heart away!
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