Marketing Communications Plan for UNICEF - Case Study Example

A Marketing Communications Plan for UNICEF May 21, I. INTRODUCTION The United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF) is an organization committed to upholding the rights of children and young people. Established in 1946 to cater to the welfare and healthcare of children devastated by the Second World War, it has evolved to become a permanent part of the United Nations System, specifically focused on humanitarian and developmental programs to children and their mothers (UNICEF 2011). UNICEF has a global presence, implementing programs in 190 countries (Welcome to UNICEF UK 2011). Its headquarters is located at the United States of America (USA). They get funds mainly from donations from individuals, groups or organizations and from the government as well. The UNICEF has several programs being implemented in the United Kingdom. These programs touch the areas: childcare and breastfeeding, education, communities, and interaction with the government on changing particular laws and policies that are deemed detrimental to a child’s rights. This Marketing Communications Plan will zoom in UNICEF’s program called ‘Communities’, an effort that aims to interact with various organizations that involve children and the youth to develop a new award scheme called Child Friendly Communities. UNICEF has defined the characteristics of a child-friendly community, which includes general knowledge, understanding and upholding f children’s rights and an equal regard for children with ethnic background, origin and orientation. These communities must have active programs that engage the youth and give high regard to their opinion and contribution. II. DISCUSSION 1. SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS (PESTEL) There are four basic rights of a child, namely: The right to survival – life, health, nationality, nutrition and name The right to development – education, leisure, care and recreation The right for protection – from exploitation, abuse, neglect The right to participation – to expression, information, thought and religion (Child Rights 2011) However, most, if not all rights are not being observed in many parts of the world. In UK alone, studies show that there are 3.8M children considered to be living in poverty (Poor children in England as young as five hide their needs from parents to protect them from the impact of poverty, new report reveals 2011). In 2005, approximately 1.4 billion people across the globe are living in extreme poverty, and every day, around 16,000 children die from causes that are hunger related (Global Hunger 2011) The alarming figure has caused non government organizations to unite and build The Campaign to End Child Poverty, a nonprofit organization working to end child poverty in the UK. Their aim is to drive the government to improve benefits and tax credits for children, and improve housing programs as well. Though the targeted campaigns have ended in 2010, each and every organization that formed the campaign is still actively pursuing their own advocacies towards upholding of human rights for children (End Child Poverty 2011). The United Kingdom upholds several laws on children welfare and protection, particularly on their rights to education, medicine, employment and the justice system. The UK government is also an active participant in global efforts to standardize human rights laws for children, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child, United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, among others (Children’s Rights: United Kingdom, England and Wales 2011). There are also specific programs for healthcare, not only for children but also for mothers, education and labor. In short, UK is one of the nations that actively push for the observance of children’s rights. In terms of Economy, UK is considered to be the sixth largest in the world as on 2010, according to nominal GDP. It employs free trade among other members of the European Union (EU) and is known to be one of the countries at the forefront of technological advances (UK Economy: The British Economy, Great Britain, The British Isles, Whatever You Want to Call It. 2011). However, despite its flourishing economic situation, well over 1.6 Million people are still living in poverty (Child Poverty 2011). There is still this distinct disparity in social class, where the rich continues to have more, and the poor goes to succumb to the pressures and stress of their economic and social conditions. This is what organizations such as UNICEF aim to fight and eradicate. a. Competitor Analysis Save the Children, Save a Child, The European Child Safety alliance and Children’s Charity are just some of the active organizations working on child rights advocacies in EK and Europe. There are a handful of them that caters basically to the same advocacy which is to promote children’s rights and ensuring that communities are safe and ideal places for children to thrive and grow to become important contributors of the country. Save the Children is one the organizations who get a lot of publicity for their campaigns. The Oprah Winfrey show is one of their supporters, thus getting fair media exposure for their programs. Their programs are not focused solely on children, but also for the people that have influence on these children such as parents, peers, communities and even caregivers. They also give particular attention to victims of natural disasters, conflicts and abuse. The organization is heavy on social networking, with presence in facebook, twitter, myspace among others. They offer several ways to participate in the programs as donors, volunteers, sponsors or advocates (Save the Children 2011). Their main platform is child sponsorship, whereby supporters pledge to provide sponsorship to a chosen child to support his basic needs. b. Segment Analysis The ‘Communities for Children; By Children’ campaign by UNICEF offers several programs to ensure general welfare and well being of children in targeted communities. This is more a prevention campaign whereby the main objective is to ensure that no abuse and maltreatment will happen to children. The task of the campaign is to award and commend communities that have high level of respect towards children’s rights, and are guaranteed to host good living conditions for the youngsters. There are three ways to support the program (1) by being a volunteer; (2) by being a donor; (3) by being a sponsor. Volunteers are those who spend a considerable amount of time helping in community research and events, and building the relationship with community leaders and hey organizations. They are also in charge of touching base with the local government for a successful program implementation. Volunteers also are the ones who solicit for sponsorships and handle recruitment of other volunteers. Moreover, they get the support of other private organizations for the implementation of the programs. Donors and sponsors support financially in varying degrees. Sponsors are more as regulars than donors, and they pledge a certain amount for a certain period to ensure seamless implementation of community programs. Donors, on the other hand, may give according to their own timing and capabilities. Both are welcome to the program as both are detrimental in the success of the program. Without proper funding, the program will not go a long way. The campaign particularly targets the HEIDI segment - highly educated, independent, degree carrying individuals – who have the capacity and sufficient disposable income to provide support to advocacies such as this. They are career oriented individuals who are holding junior or middle management positions in top corporations. They are starting to reach the peak of their careers and although the focus is on career growth, this group is still close to the young generation and they have the connection with children, being young professionals as they are. It should not be easy to get them to be connected to UNICEF’s advocacies. The goal is to engage their services as event and campaign managers per community – a challenge that would prove to be noteworthy for this target market. c. Where are we now? UNICEF is probably the top of mind word when it comes to advocacies for children’s rights. Being an arm of the United Nations, it has gained popularity in most parts of the world. It has managed to recruit the support and endorsement of top personalities such as Trudie Styler and Ewan McGregor for UK, Jacky Chan for Asia and Rhianna for US. Celebrity endorsements are effective especially for fund raising activities and programs. They give the organization a great amount of publicity and media exposure, thus ensuring that the right message is sent to the target market. UNICEF has been successful in its campaigns in all its 56 years of advocacy simply because it exudes respect and values. It is able to communicate effectively to its target market what it wants to achieve and shows all proof that it has been able to reach the goals. It engages the public’s interest and taps them into helping out (Do nonprofits have values? 2011). The x factor in UNICEF is that it encourages supporters just by being UNICEF, a brand that has been associated with humanitarian activities, particularly for children. Everyone has a soft spot for children, and no further prodding is needed to get everyone joining in the program implementation, whether just by sharing a few pounds or sharing time for community outreach. 2. Marketing Objectives (Marketing Communications) The Marketing Campaign aims to: a. Increase the involvement of female - young professionals in the program implementation. b. Maximize social networking in the dissemination of the campaign c. Increase the number of female volunteers who will spearhead various programs and share their marketing know-hows to achieve the program objectives. 3. Strategy “Communities for Children; By Children” is the main campaign behind the program. This will be launched as a support for UNICEF’s community program which aims to reward communities that meet the standards set. This campaign will be launched in an event that would simultaneously be held in three key cities in UK, which is London, Manchester and Oxford, and will be telecast and covered by BBC. It will be an hour show to be held in partnership with the local government and will be top-billed by local celebrities with existing relationship with UNICEF. Sponsors will be solicited to ensure that there is minimal cost for the organization. The aim of having a big event is to spark interest among the target market. The effort might prove to be lavish but this will be the first and only above-the-line marketing effort that the campaign would have. The rest will have supported by below-the-line efforts, particularly through the internet and social networking sites. There will be a particular website for this campaign, on top of the UNICEF website. This is because Internet Marketing has become popular because Internet access is becoming more widely available and used. Well over one-third of consumers who have Internet access at home report to using the Internet to make purchases (Benefits of an Online Approach 2011) and the UNICEF believe that the internet has proved to have given huge benefits to the organization in the past decade. The website will be interactive, and provide supporters their own log on access to be able to view developments on the programs and for them to submit their works as well. The website will serve as a meeting place of various minds. Its target is to get the HEIDI segment to convene and share ideas, make marketing plans, plan for events that are either informational or fund raisers. They can organize symposiums and forums, and community offsite interaction and dialogue with key officials. To support this, UNICEF will also advertise in other women-oriented publications and their corresponding websites. There will be banner advertisements that are though provoking, and when clicked, will lead to the ‘Communities’ website where viewers will be briefed on how they can help make a difference. Search Engine Optimization will also be subscribed to. 4. TACTICS (WHAT SHOULD THE MESSAGE SAY?) “Communities for Children; By Children” is a campaign that says it all. We are all kids at heart, but it helps if the younger ones are involved in creating child-friendly communities, because they just know what work best for the younger generation. This is why the campaign targets the HEIDI market, a group of people whose hearts are close to the cause that the organization is campaigning for. 5. GANTT CHART “Communities for Children; By Children” will launch in July of 2011. From May to June, preparations for the event and the campaign materials will be done by existing volunteers. Recruitment will start as early as now. The website should be up by June but web teasers at the UNICEF official website are already available by now. Community briefing forums will be held from July to December 2011. Evaluation will happen from January to March of 2012 and awarding will be made on April 2012. Every year from then on, the program will roll out in other communities in every city of the UK. The program targets to have as much volunteers that it could yearly so that more areas will be covered as the program progresses. 6. EVALUATION “Communities for Children; By Children” will be evaluated by the following: increase in the involvement of the target market, more importantly in the volunteer support in the program implementation. There should be 30 part time campaign managers per targeted city to cover the communities being evaluated. There is also a targeted increase in the revenues to ensure that the events, symposium and talks will be carried out as planned. At the end of each campaign year, the program wants to see at least three communities that have met the criteria. There should be a considerable drop in the rates of child abuse, hunger and illiteracy. There should be more sponsors to focus on individual development of children who are in dire need of it. Reference List “Benefits of an Online Marketing Approach 2011”. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://www.nextsbd.com/imarketing/benefits-of-online-marketing.php Child Poverty. Save the Children. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/child-poverty.htm Child Rights. Child Rights and You. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://america.cry.org/site/know_us/cry_america_and_child_rights/importance_of_child_rights.html Children’s Rights: United Kingdom, England and Wales. Law Library of Congress. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://www.loc.gov/law/help/child-rights/uk.php. Do nonprofits have values?. Brand Channel. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=110 Global Hunger. Bread for the World. Retrieved May 22, 2011 From http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/ Our Campaign. End Child Poverty. Retrieved from http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/our-campaign Poor children in England as young as five hide their needs from parents to protect them from the impact of poverty, new report reveals. City of London. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/media_centre/files2007/220_07.htm Save the Children. Retrieved May 22, 2011from http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.6146357/k.2755/What_We_Do.htm UNICEF. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNICEF UK Economy: The British Economy, Great Britain, The British Isles, Whatever You Want to Call It. 2011. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://www.economywatch.com/world_economy/united-kingdom/ Welcome to UNICEF UK. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://www.unicef.org.uk/ Read More