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



Here's the story:

In England during the reign of Queen Victoria, there was a very large number of displaced and orphaned children. Multiple thousands of them in London alone. More throughout the country. Their parents had either died or they could no longer afford to keep them. In the late 1800s, life was tough.

So there were hordes of homeless kiddies of all ages.

Dr Barnado's compassion wanted to do something for these unfortunates. After all, it wasnt their fault that they were homeless.

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 army of disadvanted & uneducated children of all ages?

Yes, how indeed?

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

BEFORE

The before shot was a street kid straight out of Dickens. Face dirty. Hair straggly. Clothing shabby. And the looks on those young faces was 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 printed an advertisement for Dr Barnado's Childrens Homes on the back. 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 custom-built villages would be hard enough all on its own, but raising the funds to do this on a massive scale called for marketing genius on an extraordinary scale.

Now... how can we apply this same sort of large thinking to our marketing?

MARKETING RESOURCES