On Sunday I was booking flights with JetStar.
The experience was typical budget airline nightmare: you have to double-check every step so that you are not charged extra from in-flight entertainment, faster boarding or other irrelevant add-ons (irrelevant for me, business critical for the whole budget airline business logic). At some point before I had done the actual booking, I was asked would I want to donate charity?
Excuse me, what?
At that moment I was already at my wit´s end with the whole booking and just wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. Helping to save mankind was not on top of my agenda; I just wanted to get to New Zealand and do it cheap. I could not have cared less at that moment about extinct dolphins, starving children or a hole in ozone layer. I think the whole experience left me hating that charity organization in addition to JetStar as well.
The experience got me thinking. Not only that I am a cheapskate with my budget airlines, but also about whole charity business.
Majority of people do not want to go for hurdles for saving the world. They are too busy taking selfies. It is not about that people are inherently stingy and selfish: they are just lazy. Give an effortless way to give couple of dollars to good cause, I guarantee that almost everyone would take part. Provided, that it is not in the middle of nerve-wrecking flight booking session. Which is an important point, I would have probably been more willing to give money to charity after I had done my booking, not during it.
These two examples from recent award rounds are great examples of how a small tweak to a product can make a big difference. The most effective solutions are often the simplest ones.
Salvation Army Gift Box: Using moving boxes from a logistics company to indicate what you want to keep and what you want to give away when moving.
THE SALVATION ARMY, CROWN RELOCATIONS – GIFT BOX from Sungkwon Ha on Vimeo.
Reversible Barcode: Scan the product upside down and give 1 dollar to charity (video can be seen here)
Quite often agencies get briefs where it is stated “no matter what you do, don´t touch the product”. These are great examples where the agency has touched the product and made it better. Small tweaks can make a major impact.
We should be in business of commercial problem solving: not in the business of problem solving commercials.
Stand-Up Strategy 