Last year,
Jumbo Supermarkten started a successful Christmas Campaign in which they raised
money to give people who can’t afford it a nice Christmas dinner of lunch. For
a lot of people it is not self-evident that they have a nice family dinner at Christmas,
because they can’t afford it. Jumbo wants to support these people, that’s why
they cooperated with some charity organisations like VluchtelingenWerk
Nederland, Nationaal Ouderenfonds and Nationale Vereniging de Zonnebloem to
realise this for people who can’t afford it themselves. The campaign was a big success.
They’ve raised enough money to give 329.750 people a Christmas dinner and the
company received a lot of positive attention on social media and a lot of media
attention. They highlighted their image as a ‘family company’ and their
willingness to take responsibility in society as a big company.
This year,
a similar campaign will be launched by Jumbo, but Christmas comes early this
year. In the press release they released last week they highlighted that they
want to do something special for the refugees that are coming to Holland. Since
the war in Syria took on extreme forms and the situation got out of hand in the
Middle East, a lot of refugees from the Middle East decided to start a
dangerous journey to Europe, hoping to find a better future for themselves and
their children. In relation to the refugees that are coming to Holland, Jumbo started their campaign earlier to raise more money and help more people. They
want to do something extra for the refugees having survived a dangerous journey.
They recognized that some people within this group may not celebrate Christmas
because of religious reasons, yet they still could use all the help and support
they can get.
The early
start of this campaign got a lot of media attention. Big news websites in
Holland like nu.nl and NOS gave attention to the early start of the campaign.
Personally I think it is a smart move from Jumbo to start this campaign earlier
and to ‘lift’ on the attention the refugee crisis is getting in de media. The
combination of a campaign that was a big success last year and by emphasizing
the good cause they’re after by helping refugees, they created a perfect story
for journalists to write about. Jumbo wants to create an image where they are
seen as a credible, responsible family company. A campaign like this is
supposed to support this image. Yet launching a campaign like this also brings
a downside: people who have a negative attitude towards refugees are likely to
not support this campaign this year. This can lead to negative comments and
perhaps eventually negative media attention. What do you think? A smart move from
Jumbo or something that could be a problem?
By Anouk de Jong.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say that this is a smart move from Jumbo, taking advantage of all the buzz around the refugees crisis and consolidating itself as a supportive brande. Yet, I think that in the end it will defeat the initial purpose of this campaign and potentially affect their image as a 'family brand'. Besides, I can't help but think it looks a bit like Jumbo is trying to 'kill two birds with one stone'. Wouldn't it have been smarter to keep the Christmas campaign, while also adding a new flash campaign to help the refugees?
ReplyDeleteThis way, not only it would cement the project started last year, but also show just how much it is aware of what is going on in the country.