The article was published without consent, knowledge or consultation with my or any representative of Autism Western Cape. The views expressed by Mango-OMC in the article are not fully supported or agreed on by Autism Western Cape. As client of Mango OMC we distance ourselves from any views expressed in the article by Mango-OMC.

Gerhard Pieterse aka Jail4Bail
Executive Director
Autism Western CapePosted on 25 Nov 2008 17:42

"Donations reached almost R650 000 via conventional offline PR, marketing and promotional campaigns and a total of R2123 via social media platforms. This figure was tracked by means of the Vuka competition entries."

That's a joke right? I actually can't believe that only 0.32% of all the money raised came from online.Posted on 25 Nov 2008 21:45

We didn't expect that there would have been a lesser call to action than offline. We were also amazed at the outcome. We will continue to integrate online, mobile and offline. We believe that as more and more South Africans go online, this scenario will change dramatically.Posted on 26 Nov 2008 09:56

Thanks, Nicole, for a thoughtful and detailed article - this is a pretty new space for everyone so the more we learn from each other, the better. I'm also quite astounded by the difference in effect between the offline and online campaigns - do you have any theories about it?Posted on 26 Nov 2008 10:31

Hi Pam, there are also the questions around:
If an online article is posted at the same time as a radio interview - how do we measure whether action was instigated by both? At the moment, in the PR sphere, our primary lessons have been:
Always integrate all communication platforms.
Ensure that there is online and mobile budget for each campaign. It's here to stay and is a powerful, engaging space.
Should the budget really be limited and a strong call to action is definitive, then we still believe for the time being, offline is the place to spend, but we do believe that this scenario shall change as more South Africans gain internet access.
What would really be interesting is if those reading this article who donated directly following online were to let us know, it would increase the accuracy of measurement and would assist us in future campaigns. We could see definite spikes following offline. It was more difficult to spot spikes with online. What was definite with online is that there were no geographical boundaries, so awareness was certainly intensified more than could have been done with offline.Posted on 26 Nov 2008 11:40

http://stii.co.za/social-media/the-big-social-media-failure/Posted on 26 Nov 2008 15:35

R650 000 offline to R2123 online? Wow I'd hate to be that person to say "I told you so".

http://snurl.com/6ua83Posted on 26 Nov 2008 16:09

http://www.mihswat.com/2008/11/28/feedalizr-social-software-jail4bail/Posted on 30 Nov 2008 18:45