But what I did not know until recently is that the Doctor was also a marketing genius.

Here's the story:

In England during the reign of Queen Victoria, there was a huge number of orphaned children. Multiple thousands of them in London alone. More throughout the country. Their parents had either died (life expectancy was much shorter in those daysor they could no longer afford to keep them. In the late 1800s, life was tough. Much tougher.

So there were hordes of homeless kiddies of all ages.

Compassion led Dr Barnado to want to do something for these unfortunates. After all, it wasnt their fault.

Do you need a mental picture? Think of the times which Charles Dickens wrote about. Think of urchins. Think of the stage play Oliver.

But now switch to thinking about this. How would YOU raise the huge amount of money needed to feed, clothe and house this ragtag army of disadvanted & uneducated children of all ages?

Yes, how indeed?

As it happened, the good Doctor was also interested in photography. So what he did was take 'before' and 'after' photos of the kids.

BEFORE

The before shot was a ragamuffin kid straight out of Dickens. Face dirty. Hair straggly. Clothing shabby. And looking either wild eyed or fearful.

AFTER

The after shot was a well dressed youngster with neat hair, clean and dressed with a newfound confidence.

His fundraising method was simple and elegant. He placed the before & after photos side by side on a page, and on the back he printed an ad for Dr Barnado's Childrens Homes. These were sold to the growing middle class for 5 shillings which was actually quite a high price in those days.

And that's one way Dr B raised the money for his good works. Looking after the kids in purpose-built villages would be hard enough, but raising the funds to do this on a massive scale called for marketing genius on an astonishing scale.

Now... how can we apply this same sort of no-limits thinking to our marketing work?

MARKETING RESOURCES