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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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