When it comes to DEI and sustainability initiatives within the advertising and marcomms industry, there’s a lot of talk about using a brand’s power and platform for good — but rarely do we see brands literally pour their ad dollars into charitable initiatives.
Helping brands turn talk into action is advertising platform Teads, which officially rolled out the first campaign in Southeast Asia under its socially conscious
Teads Care programme this August. Through the Teads Care programme, advertisers can financially support causes that align with their brands by allocating part of their media budget to a charitable association of their choice, with the remaining value delivered to the campaign within a Teads Care ad format that raises awareness among consumers.
Liquid courage
Teads Care’s inaugural SEA campaign was funded by the advertising budget from Foodpanda Singapore’s
Green Label initiative. Launched in July, Green Label is the delivery giant’s sustainable restaurant certification scheme, which incentivises restaurants on the platform to adopt more environmentally friendly practices in return for a sustainability accreditation, as well as benefits like complimentary marketing and educational workshops.
Fittingly, the Teads Care campaign funded by Foodpanda tackled a pressing sustainability-related issue: access to clean water.
As part of its campaign, Foodpanda Singapore donated a portion of its media budget to fund water innovation enterprise Wateroam’s relief efforts with their local NGO partner, Safe Water for Every Child – Myanmar.
The budget was devoted to a Teads Care ad format, which enabled Foodpanda to direct users to a public branded contribution page developed and hosted by sustainability-focused SaaS company Handprint. The page, which educates ad viewers about the project and its importance to Foodpanda, provides a convenient place for viewers to make contributions of their own by donating water microfilters (which cost S$1.99, or about $1.46, each).
To further incentivise donors, Wateroam also pledged to deploy one RoamFilter — the company’s full-sized, portable disaster relief solution — in Myanmar for every 280 microfilters donated.
Testing the waters
As of September 2022, the campaign had already facilitated the installation of 132 microfilters, filtering over 330,895 litres — a veritable deluge — of water, helping Wateroam progress towards its goal of providing free, clean, and safe drinking water to over 65,000 beneficiaries in Myanmar.
As an ad campaign — albeit an altruistic one — the metrics were, of course, also monitored closely. By employing the Teads Care ad format powered by Handprint, Foodpanda was able to observe the campaign performance and donations with pinpoint accuracy. Overall, the campaign showed promising and positive results, with a viewability of 67.84% (against a benchmark of 50–60%), while in-view time outperformed the benchmark of 8–10 seconds for display and video combined.
Commenting on the success of the campaign and the Teads Care programme as a whole, Emmanuel Fischmeister, VP of business development (APAC) at Teads said, “As a sustainable media platform, we are looking to do our part for future-proofing the media industry.”
Emphasising the simplicity and accountability of the programme, Fischmeister encouraged other brands to take on similar initiatives, stating, “This campaign demonstrates how easy it is for any brand to support an NGO, then measure and report the positive impact of its contribution thanks to Handprint’s technology. It’s all about transparency!”
Simon Schillebeeckx, founder of Handprint, called the implementation of Handprint’s technology “amazing to see” and heralded the campaign as a “new approach to turn advertising into real-world action.”
Annalisa Andrulli, head of marketing at Foodpanda Singapore, was similarly effusive about the campaign’s success in furthering the positive impact Foodpanda created through Green Label. “It is extremely gratifying to know that the marketing budget we donated to Wateroam has helped mobilise Singaporeans to donate to provide clean drinking water to beneficiaries, and we are confident that Teads Care will continue to make a positive difference to in-need communities,” she concluded.
If you are keen to understand more about how you can make a difference with Teads, you can reach out to
[email protected]