Apologies for falling behind on my updates - my last few weeks in Shanghai were pretty busy and I recently arrived back at home in the United States. In the last few weeks, I learned a lot as I helped launch Shokay’s new Yak Around the World Campaign, as well as in various conversations with my mentor, Carol, about the challenges of founding and running a social enterprise - all of which I’d like to share with our PennSEM following!
In addition to working on Shokay’s online social media marketing strategy, my other main project was the Yak Around the World Campaign. The objectives of the campaign (which is still going on) are to highlight the work of individuals who are driving positive social change all over the world while also increasing awareness about Shokay. Shokay will be sending 24 of its adorable hand-knit baby yaks to visit changemakers and their organizations. When each person receives their yak, they will help kick off the campaign by answering the question, “What are you doing to change the world today?” They will then take a picture with their yak, write a description of their cause or organization, and submit it to Shokay via a simple online form. It is then their turn to send the yak to another changemaker they know, and that person will help continue to spread the campaign all over the globe. You can see the Yak Around the World website at http://yaks.typepad.com/dontjustyak, where yak followers can view each yak’s profile, pictures from the organizations the yaks have visited, and find out where else the yaks will be going.
To determine the yaks’ initial destinations, I drew upon both mine and Carol’s personal networks to find and contact changemakers who were willing to host a yak. We also reached out to several people via Twitter, including Adrienne Villani, a writer for the new social enterprise magazine Beyond Profit, who has repeatedly tweeted about how much she loves our baby yaks. The response was overwhelmingly positive! Some other individuals who will be receiving yaks include Joyce Meng and Jennifer Chen of Givology (I personally delivered this yak when I got back to New York last weekend), Sam Adelsberg of LendforPeace.org, Calvin Chin of Qifang, and Melissa Richer of the Ayllu Initiative.
On August 8 (a nice auspicious date), we hosted our campaign launch party at the Shokay Taikang Lu flagship store in Shanghai! All of our traveling yaks were on display, and those who had already been assigned an initial destination also had a card profiling the changemaker and the organization they would be visiting. People were invited to sample our yak cheese along with some crackers and wine, as well as tweet from our in-store Twitter station. Here are some pictures from the very successful event:
traveling yaks display
As the campaign continues to build a following, people who want to start a campaign within their own organization will be able to purchase an Adopt-a-Yak kit that they can circulate to encourage their team to do good. The idea is that when someone receives a yak, they are supposed to perform a Yak-sy Act of Kindness (YAK) – anything from making a microfinance loan online to volunteering at a soup kitchen – and then pass the yak to someone else in their organization. We were thinking this would be perfect for groups like Kiva Fellows, Peace Corps volunteers, or any company that would like to encourage its employees to perform community service. Proceeds from Adopt-a-Yak sales would go to Ventures in Development’s Social Innovation Fund to provide financial resources for budding social enterprise ideas that result from the organization’s Social Innovation Salons.
Much debate went into the conception of Yak Around the World. A huge issue was balancing Shokay’s marketing objectives with the more altruistic goals of helping other deserving social entrepreneurs build their following and support base. Some team members thought we should target celebrities, politicians, and other high-profile individuals who have a strong international fan base. However, in the end we decided that this would water down the meaning of our campaign, plus there was no guarantee these types of people would be interested in participating, since our campaign was an unproven concept. Moreover, we predicted that focusing on changemakers we admire would make the campaign more genuine and therefore more likely to attract a loyal following. If people saw the campaign as a shallow marketing effort, they would more likely to lose interest or even be turned off. As a growing social enterprise with limited resources, we needed to carefully consider how our campaign would shape our image and whether it made more sense to stress sales, branding, or goodwill. If our goal was to go viral, the key was to produce something that people would naturally want to pass on to their friends, even if they are aware one of our goals is also marketing.
It will be interesting to see how the campaign unfolds over the next few months! Sadly, we know it is very unlikely all of our yaks will make it back to Shanghai safely, given the uncertainties of the post system and the likelihood that some yaks will lose their way between destinations. Hopefully, though, the yaks that do make it back home will return with some fascinating stories, and they will have built up a strong following of people who support social changemakers!
-Danielle
No comments:
Post a Comment