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Radar for Good

The Coca-Cola Company

Issue 32 | September 2014

Agency

McCann Erickson Romania. MRM Romania, McCann PR, UM

Creative Team

Chief Innovation Officer MRM Romania Nir Refuah Creative Partner McCann Bucharest Adrian Botan Executive Creative Director McCann Bucharest Catalin Dobre Group Creative Director McCann Bucharest Ioana Filip Copywriter McCann Bucharest Valentin Lica Junior Art Director McCann Bucharest Lia Bira

Production Team

Account Director McCann Bucharest Laura Aldea Senior Account Executive McCann Bucharest Amalia Jakab Client Service Director MRM Romania Ionela Buta Account Manager MRM Romania Alina Marin Account Manager MRM Romania Matei Goncea Account Manager MRM Romania Alina Chiriac Managing Partner McCann PR Imola Zoltan Account Director McCann PR Lavinia Chican Account Manager McCann PR Alina Croitoru Account Manager McCann PR Sorina Iordan Account Manager UM Romania Corina Mocanu Group Account Director UM Romania Sandina Vlad Planning Director UM Romania Victor Croitoru

Date

February 2014

Background

Coca-Cola's global strategy was based on the idea of 'Open Happiness'. One of the things that made people happy was being able to help other people. The strategy was based on the belief that wanting to do good was something most young Romanians wanted to be able to do. However, converting that desire into an action was not easy.

Idea

To give good people a little push to help others, Coca-Cola created Radar For Good, the first mobile app for close range volunteering. What it did was find NGO causes which needed help at that very moment and in that very area where the user was located. People could select out of hundreds of causes and use the app's GPS technology to get there and help out.

Results

In less than a month:

  • 21,000 new volunteers were created for over 130 NGOs, who enrolled their different causes on the app.
  • It became the third most popular app in the AppStore, leading to a 50% increase in volunteers to charitable causes.

Our Thoughts

This feels like an idea that was born out of data. Take the number of searches for ‘How can I help’ and correlate those against the number of actual volunteers and you probably see a huge gulf between wishful thinking and actual commitment.

I’m not at all sure this would work in the UK but it is heartening to see that people didn’t just want to download the app to show off their ‘saintly’ credentials but they genuinely wanted to do useful work.

This app connected people to their better selves as well as to good causes and that’s its strength.