The world of print media faces an increasingly difficult scenario over time, as it has lost ground to digital media that is increasingly reaching more people and thus becoming more attractive to invest in a brand. However, with this phenomenon, not only publications are affected, but also those who sell these products, for example, there is the case of individual sellers outside of retail who are affected by the change. There is a particular case that draws attention in the UK because the magazine called The Big Issue employs people who are living in difficult economic conditions either because they lost all their money or because of some other challenge. In their case, with the change in society becoming more and more cashless, they noticed that in addition to selling less, their sellers were also facing an increasingly difficult scenario, so they decided to launch it side by side. FCB London, An interesting campaign called “Pay it Forward” to get your magazine to more people while its sellers receive more money because the model had an option to resell. This time we will see the details of this campaign.
Push It Forward: The First Resale Magazine
To get in on the challenge, the agency shares that the number of homeless people in the UK has been increasing since the financial crisis, reaching the point where 1 in 200 people in Great Britain are considered homeless. In addition, one of the major barriers preventing these vulnerable people from integrating into society is financial exclusion because without a bank account, you cannot earn a real salary, receive benefits, or choose to live or save effectively.
On the other hand, bearing in mind what has been mentioned about the world less dependent on cash, payments have decreased in this way in the past ten years and will continue to do so according to expectations. Thus, with the rapid development of technology, the gap and problem has widened for those without bank accounts and who live in the middle of a world that requires less liquidity. This was the disastrous scenario faced by the sellers of the major issues, with most relying solely on the money in their pockets, which became increasingly limited in the region due to technological and financial advances.
Given the above, the idea of promoting the magazine arose with greater financial support for sellers, that is, Pay it Forward appeared, an effort that changed the way The Big Issue was sold.
To achieve this campaign, mobile phone payments were introduced in order to create the first magazine that could be resold with them.
As the video above demonstrates, every The Big Issue magazine in this campaign was accompanied by a QR code that people could scan to pay for the magazine again once the original buyer finished reading the content. Hence, instead of throwing away the material, they can pass it on to others as many times as possible, while helping the sellers earn each resale.
It should be noted that within this effort, resorting to mobile payments was fundamental because the bigger problem became less dependent on cash and increased each sale, with greater reach achieved by circumventing the physical limitations of sellers, but without leaving them out. The head of this income-generating chain.
Another important point to make is that in order for this business model to succeed, the sellers’ problem had to be resolved regarding their access to banking services, and thus, as part of the Pay it Forward campaign, an alliance was created with Monzo so that the sellers could open their accounts. Personal banking and get profit.
Since The Big Issue’s work is built on an individual-centered model, it was clear you had to work with vendors, so a key perspective was revealed through interviews with sellers and buyers, according to the agency .: magazine buyers are not just readers, they are open messengers of a mission. The Big Issue. Marketers rely on a small group of loyal readers.
With this insight, the idea of converting buyers into sellers made sense by placing QR codes so that they could pass the magazines on to other people and support the sellers.
Regarding the implementation of the campaign, it is indicated that it was launched as a beta scheme with vendors in the UK on April 1, 2019. Each seller was provided with stickers with their avatar and unique QR code, in addition to the bands to explain the activation and their bank account in Mono.
In the code ladder, people saw a seller’s profile with data like CV, photo, and payment option (a number not less than £ 2.5) because even people could choose how much they would pay for the magazine that was reselling.
The campaign has also hosted celebrities for its presentations, such as Gary Lineker and Emma Button. Additionally, coverage was secured in major news outlets such as BBC and The Sun.
Results
Given the above, the effort managed to generate 93.5 million impressions. In the case of salespeople, they saw a 15 percent increase in their average weekly sales and were able to spend less time selling and more learning and training on financial and employment issues to join the community.
Another goal achieved with Pay it Forward is that 100 percent of sellers gain access to personal bank accounts in order to participate in the cashless financial system.
On the other hand, from the advertising section, this campaign received fewer than 8 awards in the 2019 edition of Cannes Lions, the most representative being the gold medal in Mobile: Social Purpose.
Campaign Credits
Client: The big issue
Campaign Name: Push it forward
Agency: FCB London
Production: FCB London
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