Expert: Peter Gabany - 2/19/2011

Question
Dear Mr. Gabany,

On behalf of our, LIFE SAVING INITIATIVE, we seek your counsel.

We are trying to identify a funding model that would create a self-sustaining program.  In that pursuit we have determined the philanthropy and sponsorship model to be inadequate.  

We are now exploring an advertising model.

The advertising opportunity consists of a retailer having the ability to put a coupon directly in the hands of the over 200,000 students on a periodic bases.  The distribution of these coupons will compliment a retailer’s sales calendar, i.e. Back to School, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter (spring), etc.  We would accomplish this by putting advertising on the family of educational material within the footer and margins.  The campaign consists of 6 to 8 educational pieces of literature.

So based on the above we respectfully and appreciatively ask is this something that would be of interest to the retail community?

If yes, how do we access the retail community, directly, agency or both?  What agencies do this or what type of agency should we look for?  How does one quantify the value?

In closing let me express our appreciation and thanks in advance for the time and attention you give to this most important matter, SAVING CHILDREN'S LIVES.

Answer
This could be handled by a company - the only one in North America that I am aware of - that produces a trackable gift certificate model that goes into major retail mall across NA. The firm is called Technolutions. The President is Robert Polutnik. They utilize a proprietary software system that can track all the activity. They gererate the gift certificate (not coupon) with multi-levels of security. The Coupon is similar to a gift card but with the charity emblazoned on it could contain a clause stating the 10% of your purchase goes to the charity. This would have an exceedingly higher rate of return than a coupon program - closer to 80%.

The gift certificate is like legal tender, and with the software tracking all transactions, the retailer simply hands over the proceeds.

Otherwise to run a coupon program, it would have to be managed manually, it would have to be sold through direct and the result would be difficult to broach 3% return.

I hope that this helps - www.technolutionsca.com