Good deeds delivered at the point of need are powerful and can even be life changing. We all relate to the ultimate "good deed at the point of need" in It's a Wonderful Life, when Jimmy Stewart is given the gift of seeing his life without him in it., and there a countless stories all resembling Aesop's fable of the Lion and the Mouse.
It's no surprise then that marketers found a way to harness the power of "good deeds at the point of need" to influence consumers. Some of the more obvious examples are Tide's Loads of Hope, where semi-trucks full of washing machines are dispatched to disaster areas to provide victims with the most basic necessities of clean clothes and Samsung's Mobile Charging Stations, where airline travelers and now university students can recharge their e-gadgets for free. There is no doubt as to the power of influencing consumers in this manner. The key is finding the unfulfilled consumer need.
While reviewing the above examples it may at first appear that "Good deeds at the point of need" are limited to "special" situations when actually, upon closer examination the operative forces and benefits are identical to the sponsorship model, where sponsors are essentially providing consumers with the "events" (good deeds) when the consumers want them (at their point of need) and receiving the benefits by association with the event. This holds true for sponsoring television and radio shows as well as "live events" such as concerts and golf tournaments. The concept of providing a consumer "benefit" at the consumer's point of need is powerful and a fundamental tool in the marketing toolkit.
iSi's Information-Marketing™ applies this fundamental force to consumer information on the Internet. Where instead of interruption-based, random advertising, Information-Marketing™ provides consumers with "high-value information at their point of need," producing longer exposures, as consumers seek out the information they want, and greater receptivity to marketing messages because the exposure is intentional. Even if the information provided is not directly related to the sponsor's product or service, the consumer is still more powerfully influenced by the sponsor than with any random, interruption-based advertisement.
The take-away on all of this means that marketers should be seeking ways to provide consumers with the information they want, when they want it, preferably from an independent third-party that consumers believe. And it matters little if the information provided is directly, indirectly or not at all related to the marketer's product or service because the benefits will still be greater than any random, interruption-based ad.
A powerful, real-life example of a "good deed at the point of need" and it's effect can be seen here, as it happened to one of the marketing professionals in our company.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100417005022/en/Samsung-Mobile-Installs-77-Mobile-Charging-Stations
