Orange's Tony Aiello, as co-founder of Mobile Accord, led the company's mGive division through a groundbreaking mobile giving campaign. In May 2009, Alicia Keys appeared on American Idol with her young friend Noah, a 12 year old rapper from a small village in Rwanda, to promote the organization which is dedicated to providing life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, care and support services to children and families whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India by directly engaging the global public in the fight against AIDS. Aiello and mGive worked with Elizabeth Santiso, Vice President of Development at Keep a Child Alive, the Fox Network producers of Idol, Ms. Keys and the Mobile Giving Foundation to facilitate the campaign.
Keys directly issued two text message calls to action to Idol viewers, one entering the first commercial break and the other as the soon as the show returned from break. Through well placed on screen graphics and concise verbal calls to action based on direction from mGive, viewers were asked to donate $5 by texting ALIVE to 90999. The keys appearance was only three minutes long but 90,000 viewers responded by texting $5 donations totaling $450,000 in that time frame, making this the most successful text donation campaign to date at that time. Keep A Child Alive has now saved over 250,000 lives.
with consultation from mGive, Keep A Child Alive also utilized the following tactics to extend the mobile campaign’s reach and frequency:
viral videos for web distribution
prime placement of the mobile call to action on
their homepage
streaming concert video
live in venue calls to action during Keys US
concert tour
custom landing pages in tandem with search
engine marketing efforts
tony aiello
co-founder and ceo, mGive
james eberhard
founder and chairman, mobile accord
cb barthlow
director of client services, mGive
jim manis
president, mobile giving foundation
leigh blake
founder, keep a child alive
alicia keys
founder and global ambassador, keep a child alive
elizabeth santiso
vice president keep a child alive
fox network and american idol