Social Good Campaigns: Positive Impact Advertising

By Laura Da Silva

4 min read

In today’s world, we see adverts all day, every day. Whether this is on our TVs, on live billboards on our way to work or in advert breaks in our favourite podcasts, they saturate our lives.

Most advertising is used solely to convince us to buy more products and services. However, some companies have tapped into this resource and use it to create positive impact. By combining the modern consumer’s acute awareness of social and environmental issues with the overwhelming presence of advertising in our lives, they are pushing for greater positive behaviour change.

What are ‘Social Good Campaigns’?

‘Social Good Campaigns’ are defined as “Campaigns advertising a product and driving social action, a bigger idea, or simply a reaction to a relevant topic.” This can also aim to promote societal changes and elicit positive behaviour. For example, increasing awareness for a cause, inspiring action for a cause, crowdfunding for a social good project and promoting philanthropic work.

It is important to remember that the positive impact of these campaigns is twofold. Not only is positive awareness and action created for the social and environmental issue, but there are brand benefits. Social Good Campaigns can also increase positive brand perception, help develop trusting relationships with consumers and engage broader demographics of people.

Some Evocative Examples

Often we see great examples of Social Good Campaigns from charities and NGOs. They are experts in using advertising and marketing to elicit emotive responses and positive action. Take the ‘Torture Victims Are People Just Like You And Me Campaign’. Swiss creative agency, Advico Y&R, created advertisements for ‘Christian campaign to abolish torture’ on public transport in Zurich. This involved printing tied arms on the back of bus seats with the caption “Victims are people just like you and me”. It aimed to confront people going about their daily lives with the reality that torture still exists in our society.

It is not just charities that have taken on Social Good Campaigns. There are also great examples of brands using their advertising power for good. Take, for example, Santander. In 2017, they launched their ‘Respect Adds Up’ campaign based on the belief that there is a lack of respect in the world. They created a platform, In Someone Else’s Shoes, where users could immerse themselves in the realities of homelessness, which many were unaware of beforehand.

This augmented reality was the first of its kind. It invited passers-by and app users to interact with Jen and asked them to consider life in her shoes. They were also then encouraged to download the app and join the walkathon. Santander donated $10 for each mile walked to help families get into permanent housing.

Successes included:

Among event recap video viewers: +9.6% in Ad Recall, +6.1% in Brand Awareness and +5.5% in Consideration
4,800+ people walked 20K miles during the 3-day walkathon, helping over 200 families get into permanent housing
Drove awareness of this issue to over 5.3MM people
Won the Shorty Award for Social Good Campaign

There are also commendable examples within the gaming industry, for example, La Marocaine des Jeux & des Sports (MDJS). In Morocco, there is a complete ban on gambling advertising. MDJS use their advertising power to focus on creating a positive impact on society through sports. They have promoted the message that sports are inclusive and for everyone through several campaigns. One example is ‘3andiBlasti’.

This campaign aimed to highlight the place of women in sport through 15 original films. Each film focused on a different sport and showed how women have a place within it. For example, a female commentator in ‘Le Match’. This is because MDJS believes that “sport is a powerful tool for promoting values: solidarity, responsibility, respect, inclusion, team spirit, equality, motivation, self-esteem, so each of us has a place there.”

So, many different companies use Social Good Campaigns to shed light on societal issues. They are a provenly effective way of increasing awareness, positive behaviours, and brand awareness.

If you want to learn more about this, at DigitalRG, we have best practices and benchmarks to help set you apart from the competition. These cover a range of important sustainability and impact topics from environmental impact, to sports integrity, to responsible gaming. Click here to arrange a demo and to learn how we can help you do well by doing good.