Friends Building Futures

Clean and Clear and Free the Children have come together to make a facebook event campaign which encourages users to donate bricks to their friends and with each brick donated, Clean and Clear will donate a dollar to building a school in Haiti.



Above are two of the ads that Clean and Clear has been using to promote this cause.  There is a small amount of body copy that connects the images to the cause and tries to pull you in.

Below is more information on the promotion.

 

Once you click their call to action 'let's build a school' you have to allow the application permission to access your information and then you are brought to a page where you can choose your friends and dedicate a brick to them in the name of Knowledge, Empowerment, Optimism, or Hope. 

Once you've sent the brick you have the option of sharing it on your friend's wall, or just keeping it to yourself.  And once you've dedicated the brick there are three buttons that allow you to 

1. Dedicate another brick
2. See how we're doing
3. Learn about the charity

I think this is an interesting advertising effort and online promotion because it uses social media to try and get people to participate in a way that allows them to contribute without having to spend any of their own money. 

The option to post to a friend's wall can help spread knowledge of the campaign while keeping it from becoming an annoyance as users will know which friends to let know about the cause and who might just consider it spam. 

A potential downfall would be the fact that you have to download an application and allow it access to your facebook to participate. As well, I don't see it having a strong repeat 'consumer' since after the initial dedications there is nothing else to make you continue using it.

 The button ads themselves aren't overly engaging and that appears to be the only way they're promoting the cause.

I do think their use of facebook is effective as it is appealing to their target consumer base and is a great way to get more involved using social media. It is also a great way to track how successful their advertising is not only through the click throughs on the ads but by the number of people who like the page and actually donate bricks to the cause. 

What do you guys think? Is it an effective campaign? Would you take part in it?