Kiwibank’s mental health Facebook campaign goes viral
Kiwibank has for the second time raised its donation limit for its ‘I am hope’ social media fundraiser after the number of Facebook users changing their profile photos skyrocketed.
Yesterday Kiwibank announced it would double its previous fundraising cap to $100,000 for the mental health charity of newly crowned 2019 New Zealander of the Year Mike King.
At launch, the bank pledged to donate a dollar to the Gumboot Up NZ fund for every Kiwi who added the frame to their profile photo. The bank initially set a donation limit of $20,000, but early interest saw this increased to $50,000.
As at midday yesterday, more than 185,000 Kiwis had updated their Facebook profiles.
Gumboot Friday, on April 5, has been created by King to help raise funds for his I Am Hope charity, which is committed to giving young Kiwis access to free counselling services.
Kiwibank chief executive Steve Jurkovich said the bank’s most popular social media campaign had begun from just three promotional posts, and had since reached 2 million people. “It’s a clear message that this is something New Zealanders care deeply about,” Jurkovich said.
Kiwibank, which reported a halfyear profit of $62 million earlier this week, has come in for flak on social media for capping the amount it would donate to the cause this week.
A Kiwibank spokeswoman said the bank was also supporting the charity in other ways, by donating media resources to the campaign, providing collection points, staff resources, and banking facilities.
She went on to say the online campaign was the bank’s first one to go viral.
It’s also been a great campaign for Kiwibank from a branding perspective. The simple social media campaign would not have been expensive to develop and the reach through the 185,000 Kiwis as well as the resulting media coverage would have given the bank massive bang for its marketing buck.