Cred coins for oxygen
The campaign allows its users to convert reward points into donating oxygen
Open up any social media platform and these are the consistent talking points:
India is battling an oxygen crisis which is leading to a growing number of deaths.
Citizens are using social media to find oxygen and beds as their loved ones battle for life
And obviously, the Indian government has failed to anticipate the catastrophe as it was busy in election campaigning. It has even failed there and now it is finding new candidates to blame for the loss.
2020 is on a repeat mode with far more deaths. Obviously, India is not Singapore when it comes to size and population but to proclaim that India has shown the world how to tame the pandemic has hit it hard. So hard that our neighbouring countries are asking if they can help us to battle the situation.
Don’t get me wrong but the Indian PR of “atm nirbhar” has gone down to drains.
With the government mulling for a countrywide lockdown, most of the states have introduced their personal lockdowns. Bangalore is currently under lockdown and I don’t see the state going back to normalcy any time soon.
A lockdown means the economy going back to the start. It happened last year and this year the situation has got worse. The second wave started somewhere mid of last month and the first thing we noticed was the shortage of oxygen cylinders, beds and the lacklustre behaviour. The politics of pandemic cannot be ignored too.
Naturally, with the governments failing, citizens came forward followed by brands and non-profit organizations. For Nonprofit organizations, the job has been pretty much ongoing.
One such brand that caught everyone’s attention was - Cred. The fintech startup that rewards you for paying your credit card bills started an initiative where Cred members can redeem their coins or rewards to donate oxygen. The easiest way to help while sitting on your couch. The app also enabled its users to share this good deed on social media.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a credit card so I couldn’t be part of the armchair movement of doing and feeling good.
Anyways the campaign became the talking point on social and news media.
Just as it has always done with its advertising campaigns. The recent one and my favourite Rahul Dravid - the gunda of Indiranagar. The ad became the talking point on social media - especially on LinkedIn everyone for the next few days transformed into a brand strategist and started reviewing the ad. All of them wanted to go viral on LinkedIn.
Virat Kohli was impressed by Rahul Dravid’s new avatar. (Free PR or paid one. Please be my guest.)
I am not a brand strategist or a thought leader but whatever it be the marketing team of Cred makes sure that all its campaigns should go viral on the Internet. Be it advertising or CSR, going viral or being the talking point is an important objective.
However, the new boy band failed to excite me but Rohit Sharma liked it.
The company announced that it has partnered with Milaap, India’s leading healthcare fundraising platform, and taken up the mission of distributing 1 billion litres of oxygen via oxygen concentrators to hospitals and healthcare Nonprofits across the country.
“For every 10,000 CRED coins our members redeem, we will distribute 1000 litres of oxygen via these concentrators. unlike cylinders, oxygen concentrators recycle oxygen directly from the air thus supporting a dependent’s needs without having to look for alternative sources periodically.”
The startup also made a point to highlight the transparency factor. “This process will be transparent and all details of deployment will be published on a micro-site that will be live by May 3, 2021. All donors will receive an update of the same on their email so they can see the impact their contribution has created.”
People who don’t have the app they can give directly to the ongoing fundraising campaign on Milaap. The campaign being run by Swasth Digital Health Foundation along with ACT Grants says:
“Swasth is looking to raise Rs.1.5 Crores to procure the concentrators and deploy the same in areas of great need. The process of distribution of concentrators will be transparent and published in the public domain so every donor can see the impact he has created. The effort has already secured 10000 concentrators for immediate deployment and is currently raising funds to procure more.”
The only difference is that non-Cred members will have to give real money, while Cred members have a slightly easy way. But I do understand that the Cred coins have been earned after paying the credit card bills.
Obviously, most of them didn’t see it as a great initiative. People have questioned the effectiveness of the entire procurement process of oxygen and how the money is being used. Experts have done the math and have come to the conclusion that the campaign is fluff and Cred is fooling people.
You can check the comments section of Kunal’s LinkedIn post. My math has always been very weak.
In a recent post, AFAQS tried its best to find out if the effectiveness of the campaign by talking to few advertising experts from the country. Was it insightful?
Anyway, I appreciate what Ajeeta Bharadwaj, chief strategy officer – Wondrlab India had to say:
“Whether CRED could have achieved this balance with an ad or two less, is certainly worth debating. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that with the initiative, it has provided a simple and easy mechanism for people to donate and make a difference.”
I find the campaign interesting and doing its job :
Cred has given its members a simple way to contribute to the present crisis and feel good about it. Let’s accept it more than giving we love to show it off on social media that we are doing good and are better human beings. Studies have shown that one of the reasons why most of us give is that we want to feel good.
It has been a while to see a startup or brand using its reward points for a cause in a simple and effective manner.
Cred also enabled the sharing option while making it a personalised communication. Nonprofit organizations should take note of the thank you page that Cred has created for its users to share on social media. Thereby it has become a talking point and also educating other Cred users and the public in general.
Leaving the math aside, Cred has been open in its communication. The latest blog post says that 450 oxygen concentrators received.
“Over the last week, more than 7.5 lakh CRED members pledged their CRED coins and helped us initiate deploying funds of ₹10 crores to our partners at Milaap, Hemkunt Foundation, and Give India. These organisations are placing orders for necessary equipment for hospitals and healthcare organisations, and having them shipped this week.”
Providing more details the startup says:
“The 450 concentrators are designed to operate at a capacity of 5 litres per minute each and if run for 12 hours a day, they can generate an aggregate of more than 1.5 million litres per day. With this tranche, we expect to serve the need for up to 45 million litres over a month from deployment. Details of where it has been deployed, and the number of patients it has benefited, will be updated on this blog in the coming weeks.”
One of the reasons why most people avoid giving to Nonprofit organiztions is because they don’t trust and lack accountability. Cred has been honest about its campaign so far.
“Our contributions channelled to Give India and Hemkunt Foundation have been deployed for the necessary equipment. The on-ground impact of this will be clear to us on May 15th, after which we will share more updates with you.”
Meantime, founder Kunal has updated his LinkedIn with a quote from Aristotle:
