Obama ‘charged for everything’

The Obama merchandising campaign in the run up to the Presidential election was described as either innovative and controversial, depending on your voting preferences. However, it was definitely a record-breaking approach to campaign funding. The tradition in the USA has been for election campaigns to give away promotional items such wholesale t-shirts, even for non-voters, signs to be stuck in the lawn, and car stickers – which in itself seems very strange to British people who see political campaigning as a sedate affair. But the Obama campaign charged for its merchandise from the very beginning.

Why it worked

Because every purchase – even the £1.50 to buy a car sticker, counted as a ‘political contribution’ the campaign was able to record every purchaser as a potential voter, contributing to the landslide that led to Obama’s choice as candidate. In addition, the range of merchandise was huge, from the £1.50 sticker to the £50 designer bag, with fashion guru custom-designed T-shirts falling in the middle of the range. And because the online store offered a round up option on its check-out page, many customers chose to add a few dollars to round up their purchase, providing tiny but valuable additional sums that could be spent wherever the campaign chose. But what made most difference was the atmosphere. One voter said, ‘I was at the Denver Rally and it felt like a rock concert they were selling so much merchandise …’ and that upbeat, young and positive vibe carried Obama right to the White House.

The Woodland Trust got into shopping

The Woodland Trust is considered to be a pretty staid charity, along with the National Trust and Guide Dogs for the Blind it ranks as one of the most trusted (and possibly, most unexciting) doers of good works. However, in recent years the Woodland Trust has launched an innovative new online trading activity. It has a number of different ‘shops’, all online, linked to specific projects. They all have different products to appeal to a segmented range of supporters, or customers. In some shops you can buy trees, in others you can buy gifts and take out memberships, while in some others you can design your own T-shirt to wear or to have sent as a personalised gift.

Why it works

Online shops create a lot of traffic, bringing a different, younger and more diverse audience to see the work of the Trust. Running the shops is seen as a business rather than an information source, which means that the focus is on meeting customer needs first, educating second, which removes the ‘goody goody’ earnestness seen in many charitable online storefronts. It has reduced the paper load involved in sending out catalogues to supporters, which was increasingly coming under criticism as it seemed to be destroying the very trees it was meant to save.

Controversy and Copyleft – a fight over a T-shirt

Founded in 1998, Copyleft was involved in open source software – the belief that computer software should have open source code that allows anybody to change it, free of charge. In 2000 as part of a fund-raising campaign, it began to sell a hand-printed T-shirt that led to an international court case. The Open DVD T-shirt, as it was known, featured the source code to DeCSS, a programme that decrypts DVDs and ended up with Copyleft being charged, in the USA, with infringing trade secrets. And it did, indeed, lose the case. However the organisation was unrepentant, believing that the publicity generated for the cause of open access to software more than outweighed the fine it received.

Why it worked

Controversy is not for all organisations and many charities in particular shy away from bad publicity, but for radical campaigning organisations like Copyleft, being sued by a Goliath can bring them great public support and a wider awareness of their role in promoting the rights of ‘the little people’ against those of ‘big business’

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