There are only a few moments in life that fill you up with incredible joy, no matter what the situation. One such thing that guarantees absolute joy is the sight, smell and feel of new shoes. Once you step into a pair of new shoes, it seems to transform existence for the better filling us up with incomparable confidence.
Recently, we got the chance to experience such bliss through a wonderful CSR exercise, which we had to design and conduct for a leading footwear brand. No, we did not receive free shoes from the brand, but what transpired through the program was magical to say the least.
The footwear brand, which is a giant in the market, has had a deep-seated presence in Kolkata for over a decade. This footwear brand’s catalogue of products includes a wide range of shoes for kids and adults as well. For this brand, quality and durability has been the reason behind their commendable success in the urban and semi-urban market. Hence, building a Corporate Social Responsibility program became important in their endeavour. What the client wanted was to create awareness about its CSR offering in a feasible and non-advertised way. That is when Magne was roped in as a partner in conducting an end-to-end CSR activity named “Ek Jodi Juta” at different schools in Kolkata.
Shoes for Thought: The idea behind the cause
For most, childhood is cherished, and this colourful phase is intricately related to schooling. For any child, the school shoe becomes iconic on various levels and it is something that we all relate to personally. Unfortunately in India, a vast majority of schoolchildren are underprivileged and hence go through the entirety of their childhood with no proper footwear to wear to school. The “Ek Jodi Juta” initiative hence aimed at changing the world of these underprivileged children for the better, one shoe at a time. The idea was to collect old school shoes from children from the privileged sector and in return for every 5 pair of old school shoes collected, the footwear company would donate 1 pair of new school shoes to an underprivileged child.
The Walk: How the process was executed
In order to mobilise the “Ek Jodi Juta” initiative, Magne went forward and approached a few A+, A and B+ graded schools. Through research we found that it would be in schools belonging to this grade that we would have the chance to procure the most amounts of disposable shoes. After short listing a number of schools, we organised an event at these schools that signed up for the initiative, wherein we distributed “Ek Jodi Juta” certificates, gift vouchers and a trophy to the students who actively took part in the initiative. Also, the names of the schools taking part in the campaign were featured in the website and facebook page of the brand. Finally, we also reached out to various NGO’s and schools working with the underprivileged and donated new pairs of school shoes, proportionate to the amount of old pairs collected from the various schools.
Leaving impressionable footprints: The achievement
The “Ek Jodi Juta” campaign was a roaring success. After partnering with over 30 schools and a number of NGOs in the past couple of years, the impact it has had on various lives has been humungous. Through this campaign we have been able to reach out to more than a thousand underprivileged children and secured their steps with a pair of brand new school shoes from the footwear brand we were working with. With over five thousand pairs of old shoes collected from the various schools involved in the program, the initiative was a huge success. Partnering with us for such a campaign has not only touched so many lives but it has also helped the brand plummet ahead in terms of its brand identity. By virtue of this campaign, this footwear brand has now become more popular and identifiable among a huge mass of people in the urban and semi-urban areas which was one of the main concerns for the brand. Owing to the success of the CSR activity, the footwear brand got immediate traction among the educated urban mass, which translated into conversions. After all, it does make sense to admix business with a bit of goodwill, for compassion never goes out of style.
If you are an organisation, business or brand interested in reaching out to the world, get in touch with us.
