From: Chase
Subject Line: Your Communities. Your Vote. Our $5 Million.
Date: Friday, December 11, 2009
As we're all rushing to buy and wrap presents, decorate our homes and offices, snap that all-important family picture and figure out what to do with Great-Aunt Esther's annual fruitcake [insert your choice of atrocious holiday tradition], I'm reminded to take a breath and appreciate the small things that bring us holiday cheer. I was jolted back into a true appreciation of the season with an email forward from a coworker on a viral email that was making the rounds. Many of you have already seen this email or read about it on the blogosphere, but if you haven't - I urge you take a look at video.warmup.com.
I was reminded of this effective strategy today. My bank teller at Chase wished me a happy holiday, but instead of her usual reminder of other Chase products and services, she asked me if I supported any local charities and if so, to check out Chase's effort on Facebook to give away $5 million dollars this year to customers' favorite charities. When I signed into my bank account, I saw the following banner ad. Chase has set up an ingenious effort to generate "fans" and spread this goodwill and holiday cheer by asking users to "vote" for their favorite local charity and put them in the running for a $25,000 grant. I voted for my favorite local organizations as well as spread the word throughout my network by posting my "vote" on my wall.
I was grateful for Chase's effort to help me slow down and think about these other acts of giving. I won't ever receive the much-needed gift of time from an email or an online marketing campaign, but they can cement my brand loyalty and loosen my purse strings. Now, if only a company could figure out how to email me idiot-proof instructions to assemble my kids' dollhouse ...

Comments
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Posted by: Joannie Paterson | March 31, 2011 11:42 AM
Great post! I?m just starting out in community management/marketing media and wanting to understand how to do it nicely - resources like this post are incredibly helpful. As our company is based inside the US, it?s all a bit new to us. The example above is something that I worry about as properly, how you can show your own genuine enthusiasm and share the fact that your product is useful in that case
Posted by: Kirby Arimoto | April 10, 2011 5:11 AM