1 Small Step for Cancer
01
Covering note
The survival rate of childhood cancer in India is as low as 30%, compared to 80% in developed countries.
The abandonment rate due to financial constraints among low-income families is as high as 40%. One of the major reasons for this is that most families had to abandon treatment midway because of the unavailability of funds.
90% of these abandonments happened in the first month of treatment because even though relief funds for cancer treatment exist, their deployment takes time.
In the interim, the system offers very little financial aid.
We wanted to create an Emergency Relief Fund worth INR 1 Cr that could help up to 1000 children survive cancer. Our objective was to leverage the power of integrated marketing channels and deploy a growth hacking mindset in order to meet this goal.
But our real challenge was ZERO marketing budget.
02
Concept
Through different mediums of marketing, we wanted to make people aware of the cash crunch families were facing whose children were diagnosed with cancer.
We wanted to raise an emergency fund of 1 crore to help these families complete the cancer treatment for their children and not leave them midway.
We decided to keep our communication simple so that it resonated with the audience. In line with the ethos of the 1SmallStep Foundation, our campaign hashtag was called #1SmallStepForCancer.
Through social media platforms, content publications (online and offline), our website, emails, and WhatsApp, we decided to spread our message and seek donations.
As video is the most powerful form of communication, we wanted to create digital exclusive videos leveraging the power of celebrities to get our message across succinctly.
We established strategic partnerships with other organizations such as the Rotary Club of Mumbai and Queen's Necklace, and Milaap Foundation to raise awareness and garner more donations.
03
Innovation
Our website was the hub of the campaign where contributors could learn more about the cause and donate. We crafted a streamlined UI and UX with minimal clicks, making it easy for potential donors.
Additionally, a 3-step one-page checkout process allowed us to track contributor data and reach out to contributors who abandoned the donation mid-way through email marketing. Effective integration of WhatsApp helped encourage social sharing and awareness.
Strategic partnerships with other organizations helped us reach a wider audience. The Rotary Club of Mumbai and Queen's Necklace agreed to match all contributions raised rupee by rupee and Milaap Foundation helped us with insights on the fund-raising process and gave us access to their contributor base that we leveraged through email marketing.
04
Execution
We kick-started the campaign on 4th September 2017 with Emraan Hashmi whose son valiantly battled and survived pediatric cancer. This was followed by other celebrities like Shilpa Shetty who shared videos. Each one took #1SmallStepForCancer and urged others to follow suit. Each of these videos was posted on the 1SmallStep social pages as well as on the celebrity’s pages allowing us to gain a wider organic reach.
Milaap Foundation shared our content on their Facebook page helping us reach relevant audience that included potential donors.
By leveraging influencers, #1SmallStepForCancer trended on Twitter (India) that helped us increase awareness. Soon other print and digital content publications featured us.
Other influencers also started their own support campaigns to help us reach our target.
Reel
04:21
05
Results
We garnered over 100 million impressions across all platforms.
We reached over 60 million people across all platforms, thousands of organic video views, likes, comments and shares, and generated a PR value of 1.15 Cr.
The Results:
- Number of Donations: 1,023
- Amount raised: INR 10,219,250
- Amount spent: INR 0
However, our real success was the fact that up to 1000 children got a fair and full chance at a healthy life.
