New York, United States
Nanhi Kali is a leading global non-profit organization that saves the lives of girls in India by paying for them to stay in school instead of having them remain housebound, exploited as child laborers or prostitutes, or married off at the age of 10.
For as little as $65 (U.S.) per year, donors can keep an Indian girl in school instead of in the street or worse.
Nanhi Kali (which means "small bud") has relied on paid advertising to generate awareness and donations. That led to a marketing challenge: how to raise awareness while minimizing the cost of paid media in the global marketplace. For an organization where every penny truly counts, this was a crucial issue.
"The answer lay in social media and the creation of a most unusual virtual guide," said Sheetal Mehta, Executive Director of the Nanhi Kali organization.
"We have seen the power of social media and social networking as a global marketing and media revolution, and we decided to take advantage of that power," Mehta said. "Most non-profits are stuck in the traditional advertising age, spending precious money to buy media. We thought in the age of Google, Facebook and Flickr there must be a better, smarter way.
"We developed the Nanhi Kali iSite - a truly innovative Internet 2.0 site to generate donations and awareness without having to waste money paying for ads," Mehta said. "We created a virtual girl named Shreya. When you type in http://www.girlsmiles.org, Shreya comes to life on your screen and guides you through the Internet in a simple, human way."
To bring its vision to life, Nanhi Kali turned to StrawberryFrog, one of the world's leading innovative communications firms.
Scott Goodson, founder and chief creative officer of StrawberryFrog, called Nanhi Kali "exactly the kind of brand we wanted to collaborate with: modern, intelligent and a social activist. All of us here at StrawberryFrog are so very proud to be a part of this work for such an incredible cause."
"We set out to make this iSite a model of marketing innovation," Goodson said. "Shreya is alive, human -- an embodiment of the Nanhi Kali organization. She guides you through the World Wide Web where all sorts of information, content, images, films, communities, people and contacts relevant to Nanhi Kali live -- and also places for you to make donations and keep an eye on your student. The future of the Web is about organizing information in a way that is simple and human -- like our Girlsmiles.org iSite."
The Nanhi Kali iSite was launched recently on Facebook and other social media to opinion formers across the globe. To bring Shreya to life, StrawberryFrog collaborated with AlbertKen, a branded utility technical firm in Sweden.
"It's a totally new way to think of the Net," said Martin Stadhammar of AlbertKen. "It lets you experience the Nanhi Kali movement through the eyes of different sites."
Mehta, of Nanhi Kali, said the iSite "has been brilliantly executed and already has been very effective. The Nanhi Kali iSite has already created thousands of new leads, and hundreds of new donations from across the globe, which has led to new financial aid for the young girls that Nanhi Kali supports."
Nanhi Kali is a sponsorship program that supports the education of less privileged and disadvantaged girl children in India. It currently supports over 37,000 girls in urban rural and tribal parts of India. http://nanhikali.org/
StrawberryFrog is a leading independent global convergence agency, known for its innovative work for Heineken, Frito Lay, Morgan Stanley, Mahindra, Microsoft and Asics Onitsuka Tiger. www.StrawberryFrog.com AlbertKen is a Swedish-based, digital presence branded utility expert.
Source: Business Wire (Business Wire India)