Give Your Online Home To The Homeless

Background

ERA Belgium has grown in just 15 years to be the largest real estate company in the country with 120 offices.

For a few years now, they have run campaigns talking about the emotional value of a house. About how important a house is in everybody’s life. And every winter, they help those who don’t have a house: the 20,000 homeless in Belgium.

Idea

To create awareness of the problem as well as to raise funds, people were invited to hand over their Facebook profile page to a homeless person for 24 hours. The homeless person was added to the profile picture of the user and, for a day and a night, he or she would virtually live on the user’s Facebook page. They could post a few messages and create links. For example, a link to ERA’s online shop, where donations could be made.

For every person who gave a homeless person a home, ERA donated 2 Euros to a charity for the homeless.

The campaign was able to make people aware about this social problem right in the middle of their social lives.

The idea spread virally almost immediately, but to reach ERAs main target audience (people looking to buy or sell a house) collaboration was sought from one of the largest real estate websites in Belgium: zimmo.be, where visitors can view what properties are for sale and where on a map of Belgium. On the zimmo maps, homelessness was dramatized by images of ‘ghost’ homes next to houses genuinely up for sale, along with the message: “Are you looking for a house? So am I.”

Clicking on any of these took the visitor to the campaign website, where he or she could give them a virtual home.

Results

After only 2 days, more than a thousand people had given their ‘home’ to a homeless person. Before facebook blocked the application.

This immediately generated much comment for both the campaign and the problem, in the press as well as on numerous news sites, technology blogs, entertainment sites, social communities and other blogs.

Our Thoughts

Increasingly, companies of all shapes and sizes are establishing relationships with consumers through their support of charitable causes of one kind or another. In the UK, most estate agents are regarded as sharks but in Belgium, I am told, ERA has been known for its integrity right from the start.

Isn’t it interesting, though, to see how once again Facebook were so humourless in their response to the idea? They didn’t care for Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice idea of unfriending ten of your friends in return for a free burger and now it appears they don’t care for the homeless much either. Not how Facebook makes friends for itself.