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 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. Much tougher.
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.
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 vast amount of money 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 the looks on those young faces was either wild eyed or fearful.
AFTER
The after shot was a well dressed youngster 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.
Looking after the kids in purpose-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 no-limits thinking to our marketing work?
