Clientele

Client Objective:
Recruit volunteer families in the Atlanta market to host foreign exchange students, ages 15-18, for the upcoming school year. Radio advertising is one form of media they have never tried in the past.

Client Challenges:
Their recruitment “cutoff” was mid-July for the approaching school year which started in August.  They usually begin recruiting families in January. The client and I started in June which gave us a very short window of opportunity.

• The client was at the end of their recruiting season with limited time
• CCI only had $6,000 to spend on the campaign
• The client had a pre-written script that was non-targeted
• CCI offered many services outside of “hosting” foreign exchange students.  Their website was very informational. However, you really had to dig around to get to the “hosting” section for more information.  And, their website address was not easy to remember.

The Process:
Since the client had a script ready to go they wanted to start the campaign immediately. I used several proven procedures to assist the client with targeting, expectations, strategy, and tactics to form a successful campaign and not rush the process.

The Idea:
Create a message that “spoke” directly to the target audience. Run the spots during the Delilah show from 8p-12a. Delilah’s audience had more of an open heart since Delilah has adopted many kids and her audience is used to her message of opening your heart and house to people. This audience may be more likely to open their house to a foreign exchange student. During the CNA we discovered that women were the primary decision makers. We tried to be as creative as possible with the spots.

Utilize streaming as an inexpensive way to reach more people during the day.

Propose a schedule that would run for three weeks and take into account their budget.

Create a domain name, www.georgiahost.info, which pointed directly to the desired page within the CCI website.  I purchased the domain name and set everything up for the client.

The Results:
The client was extremely pleased with the commercials and our approach.  CCI had two families call and fill out the paperwork for the application process.  CCI was able to get one family signed up for the school year.

Client was very happy with the process and appreciated the strategy and campaign planning procedures .

About CCI:

Each year, CCI provides over 1000 exchange students the opportunity to live with American families across the U.S., from a few weeks in the summer, up to a 10-month academic high school year.

Established in 1985, the Center for Cultural Interchange (CCI) is a non-profit international exchange organization dedicated to the promotion of cultural understanding, academic development, environmental consciousness and world peace.

CCI organizes high school exchange, short-term group homestay, intern and trainee, work & travel in the U.S. and study, teach, work, volunteer, and language programs in over 30 countries around the world.

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