Consumer Behavior - United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund - Essay Example

Topic: Consumer Behaviour-Non-profit Organization Introduction United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Nations General Assembly did the initiation of UNICEF on December 11, 1946. The aim of UNICEF was to supply food and healthcare relief to children in countries affected by World War II. In 1953, UNICEF was a stable member of the United Nations System which led to the shortening of its original name to United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund but UNICEF is still known by the famous acronym based on the old name. The Headquartered of UNICEF is based in New York City which offers reliable humanitarian and developmental support to children and mothers in developing countries. UNICEF mainly depends on contributions made by governments and private donors. For 2006 UNICEF’s total income was $2,781,000,000. Governments donate two thirds of the organization's resources; private groups and 6 million persons donate the rest via the National Committees. In 1965 UNICEF was given Nobel Peace Prize and in 2006 UNICEF was given the Prince of Asturias Award of Concord. Advertisements made by UNICEF needs high efforts since the Non- profit organizations are unique in the sense that they function mainly to meet certain needs on need thus their advertisement should be able to convince people to agree on what the organization wants. In advertisement made by UNICEF profit comes second but the message conveyed is very vital with an aim of raising the money to meet the needs of children. The organization must have a strong brand and a differentiating creative policy that will convey the message and make the public aware of what is required. The message must be presented to look very important to an extent of drawing the organization’s attention and causing the organization to act. Children’s quality of life in terms of education, welfare and health, requires improvement by UNICEF, UNICEF provides relief to children affected by natural calamities, education to children affected by HIV and Aids and child labor. UNICEF calls for people to chip in and defend children through donations, volunteering, by doing so people are asked to take action in supporting the projects (Barry J. M., 2011). The advertisement tries to encourage the importance of children in society. Some of the things UNICEF encourage is life saving which is done through use of existing cheap technology and high impact interventions like vaccines, antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated mosquito nets, improved breastfeeding practices and adoption of safe hygiene practices stop unwanted death of mothers and children and reduce malnutrition. Other behavior encouraged by UNICEF are to ensure that children are given basic education and treated equally in terms of gender, children are protected from HIV/Aids inflection by preventing mother-child infection, virus transmission, offering paediatric treatment, disease prevention, support children affected with AIDS. UNICEF encourages child protection by protecting children against violence, exploitation and abuse. The organization encourages policy advocacy and partnership through data, policy analysis, leveraging resources, and child participation. The advertisement is mainly based on enlightening the public about what has been mentioned above and aims at catching people’s heart to contribute towards the organization (Barry, 2011). Analysis Several ways are used in the disseminating of the advertisements, which include; Email Message; messages about UNICEF will be attached to every email that is sent. The recipients will be required to pass the information about UNICEF to others people interested in assisting the organization achieve its objectives. Portable sign donation will be strategically positioned so that when people pass around that area they are able to access the information Media Kit comprising of press release, brochures, newsletters, statistical data, pictures and biographies of UNICEF will be given to people for free, thus enabling them to access the information. More advertisements will be done through; newspapers, Television or Radio and will be accessed by the users. The website owned by the organization will play an important role; the advertisement will be provided at the website for the users can access the information whenever they access the website. Community Calendars containing information about UNICEF will be published. As people buy the calendars every household will access and spread the information about the organization. Other ways of conveying the message will include cards and bible that will be accompanied with information about the organization (Burnett, 2007). Resource attraction is the attraction of funding and other resources to the organization. UNICEF resources are typically obtained by communication of its needs through advertisement and public relations which must attract the clients. The organization in doing its advertisement should ensure that the cause being addressed is viable financially. This is achieved through addressing of the following questions; 1) are the operations costs expensive for UNICEF to bear? 2) Does UNICEF expect to run its programs for a long time necessitating the ability to lock out competitors and to demonstrate some sort of competitive advantage to ensure program viability? 3) Does the program fit what the agency is already doing, and does it provide synergy to the other programs already running. Marketers must learn everything they can about the organization stakeholders; these involve online research, demographic research, research on attitudes, interests and lifestyle and face to face involvement. In order to attract clients UNCEF management team must ensure that the ideas are sold because of their complexity; this can be achieved through raising the appeal and being advertised in a way that will ignite the interest of the constituents. UNICEF as a non- profit organization is under pressure to be democratic in its fundraising, trusting that every stakeholder is vitally interested in all that the organization does. The organization must identify the parts that the clients are more interested as in most cases the interest of the organization differs with the interest of the donors. In advertising the issue of donor handlers and the pricing involved in the marketing effort should be addressed as this will help the clients to know the smart donor amounts to ask for. On The organization has less viability in pricing than the profit organizations. Thus UNICEF must be realistically assessing the amount of money the organization needs and the amount charged for services (Donald, Walter, & Henley, 2001). In advertising UNICEF must develop a resource allocation strategy. The way funds are distributed in the organization gives the definition of the organization, and this will enable the constituents in the perception of the organization’s scope of expertise. The marketing tool with which UNICEF attracts resources, accomplishes constituent’s persuasion, and executes appropriate program allocation encompasses; UNICEF communication program, its pricing policy, its cause or products, and its distribution channel. Marketing can be viewed as a systematic philosophy and approach to do business. Marketing requires interacting business activities, reinforcing the premise that each area of management is participates in the successful operation of the company and depends on every other area if the organization is to properly implement its role. In essence, marketing tools are connected with all other aspects of doing business (Hoyer & Macinnis, 2008). The marketing mix of UNICEF can be expressed in two organizational formats; first, marketing can take the form of a marketing campaign. A campaign is usually an extended effort by the organization to reach specific financial, membership, or other resource goals within a particular period of time. The evidence of a marketing campaign is the rigorous efforts done by the organization and its supporters. The second type of marketing is where the agency has daily market operations and its ongoing relationship with its donors, customers, volunteers, and clients in their joint undertakings and interactions. Marketing in this sense, is the attempt by the organization to accomplish short term, daily goals. The things involved in marketing campaigns include taking into account and targeting appropriate audience to accomplish goals, the target audience are donors, volunteers, and organization members who are willing to achieve their individual goals through personal involvements. Messages of encouraging, solicitation, and benefit are sent by people inside the organization to those outside, and messages of acceptance, displeasure, and encouragement are sent from outside the organization to the inside. These messages allow action by both parties. The individuals targeted by the organization determine the success of the organization’s efforts; therefore they should be allowed to respond appropriately to the offers or causes presented by UNICEF. This will assist the organization in making necessary adjustment in order to meet with the needs of its clients. For the organization and individuals taking part in booting the organization activities, there are benefits given to them for example scholarships for individuals and awards to the organization, for instance, in 1965 UNICEF was given Nobel Peace Prize and in 2006 UNICEF was given  Prince of Asturias Award of Concord. These benefits help in conveying a sense of success to the individuals and the organization (Walter & Richard, 2006). Daily marketing operations and more incentive marketing campaigns have clear, concise goals and objectives; the individual’s partnership with UNICEF is clearly stated, but in every marketing effort, there is a group that fails to respond to whatever is being presented as different people have different attitudes towards different things. References Barry, J. M. (2011). Successful Marketing Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations: Winning in the ... New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,. Burnett, J. (2007). Nonprofit marketing best practices. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Donald, R., Walter, W., & Henley, T. (2001). Marketing communications for local nonprofit organizations: targets and tools. Binghamton: Best Business Books. Hoyer, W., & Macinnis, D. (2008). Consumer Behavior 5th Edition. Canada: Cengage Learning . Walter, W., & Richard, S. (2006). The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook. New York: Yale University. Appendix 1: Advertisements Read More