Page 23 - Internationalist Magazine 2013 66
P. 23



DIGITAL SOLUTIONS HUMANITARIAN


American Red Cross,

Disaster Preparedness
American Red Cross (Local)

The American Red Cross found that there is a disconnect 

between Americans’ perceptions of their preparedness 
and actual preparedness for a disaster; though 85%

say that it is very important to be prepared for a long 
term disaster by having the necessary supplies. When 

compared to Red Cross’s deinition of being prepared – 
get a kit, make a plan, stay informed – only 10% of people 

USAA,
actually are fully prepared. Of the 39% who have a kit, 
#HonorTheFallen
only 44% have updated it within the past 6 months.
Merkle (Local)

The USAA had an objective to stand out from the crowd While other apps simply contain a scrolling list of 
on a busy holiday and raise brand awareness with
everything they need to do during a certain phase of an 

both active military members and veterans while also emergency/disaster event, the American Red Cross has 
generating brand goodwill on a day that perfectly aligned prioritized their content. When the user looks to see what 

with the brand mission and identity. Their strategy
they need to do right after an earthquake, the headings 
was to harness the relevancy, immediacy of the Twitter indicate the level of priority, with the “If you do nothing 

platform to promote brand messaging, up engagement else.” denoting the most important steps, followed by 
and generate advocacy surrounding USAA’s “Honor The “Then if you can, do this.”, closing with “If you’ve done 

Fallen” initiative.
all that, do this.”. The goal of presenting the content in 

this fashion was to provide measures to take in bit-sized 
USAA didn’t have to create the conversation, they could bits so users would be more likely to do and improve their 

join it. Utilizing Twitter’s new keyword targeting within safety. Further enhancing this capability is the ability to 
the timeline proved extremely successful for the USAA target any content added on a state-level.

because they were able to align with the conversation 
that was already happening around Memorial Day. They And because they’ve created apps for speciic disasters, 

were able to ind and participate in emotionally engaging any society can replicate this model and adapt for their 
conversations about the holiday that complemented own by simply adding in their own localized content and 

brand objectives using keyword targeting based on what including any alerts from a centralized alerting source. 
people were already saying such as “#memorialday” or 
It’s a perfectly scalable model, adaptable for any region 
“Memorial Day”. They knew that @USAA members in the world. The Red Cross’ digital campaign has been 

would be talking about Memorial Day, so they used extremely successful with over 3.4 million downloads in 
promoted Tweets to join existing conversations and drive a 13 month time frame, multiple “New & Noteworthy” 

real-time engagement. Interest and keyword targeting and “What’s Hot” features in the Apple store and the 
helped them to connect our emotional #HonorTheFallen Hurricane app reaching #2 of ALL free apps in the App 

messages with the audience most likely being receptive. Store during Hurricane Sandy. They have an Average of 
With over 60% of USAA engagement occurring on 4.5/5.0 stars across Android and iPhone platforms. The 

mobile devices, the #HonorTheFallen campaign topped American Red Cross were winners at the 2013 National 
all engagement metrics @USAA had seen from previous 
Hurricane Conference taking the award for ‘Outstanding 
Twitter activity. Promoted Tweets with rich media and Achievement for Hurricane App.’

keyword targeting performed 57 times better than the 
brand’s previous promoted tweet engagement rate 

average.


The USAA also experienced over 2,500 retweets in 24 
hours of campaign launch. Twitter Ads also proved 

signiicantly more cost effective than other online 
advertising. Their simple Fallen Soldier Flag image 

proved to be extremely powerful because the image 
spoke volumes to followers. The simple call to retweet 

the image with the hashtag #HonorTheFallen created an 

opportunity for people to publicly support fallen soldiers. 
Even @WhiteHouse joined the conversation using the 

USAA’s #HonorTheFallen hashtag.



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