TV Commercial

Last night I was impressed to see something on TV I’ve never seen before– a commercial for Scouts Canada.
Is this new or am I just not very observant ?

It was a long shot of a mountain peak shot from below whith a text overlay “Q: What should I put in my backpack ?” then a reveal of the text “A: Everything you need to survive – Scouts Canada”

I was quite impressed – the message I took from this was that if you’re up for a challenge come and talk to Scouts Canada and we’ll fix you up with one.
- Is this a new commercial ?
- If so, are there others in the works ?
- Is it part of a campaign across other types of media ?
- Can someone at Scouts Canada put it on Youtube so we can share with others ?

If we can arrange for this in between episodes of “Survive This”, “Survivorman” and “Mantracker” we’ll be overwhelmed with membership enquiries.

Last night I was impressed to see something on TV I’ve never seen before– a commercial for Scouts Canada.
Is this new or am I just not very observant ?
It was a long shot of a mountain peak shot from below whith a text overlay “Q: What should I put in my backpack ?” then a reveal of the text “A: Everything you need to survive – Scouts Canada”
I was quite impressed – the message I took from this was that if you’re up for a challenge come and talk to Scouts Canada and we’ll fix you up with one.
- Is this a new commercial ?
- If so, are there others in the works ?
- Is it part of a campaign across other types of media ?
- Can someone at Scouts Canada put it on Youtube so we can share with others ?
If we can arrange for this in between episodes of “Survive This”, “Survivorman” and “Mantracker” we’ll be overwhelmed with membership enquiries.

What about National Geographic and Discovery Channels then...GREAT IDEA Swampo.

All good ideas, but at what cost? NAtional exposure is costly. Less effective, but zero cost is the local cable stations.

The most effective advertising is our members asking friends to join. The WOSM membership study showed that TV advertising was the least useful because it costs so much to get viewer recognition. A church conference I was at a few years ago reported the same thing - the fastest growing churches these days are in the Pacific Rim in the lowest income areas where people don't have TV's or computers. People go around asking people to come to church and it works.
A friend at Global TV says we should focus on the web to raise awareness but (he says) we still have to ask people to join.

The most effective advertising is our members asking friends to join.

The best thing about this approach is that the people most likely to go out asking are those who are having the best experience in Scouting, thereby creating growth in the sections providing the best of what Scouting has to offer.

In any case, however, it is retention that we should be concerned about far more than recruitment. With 45% of our members new each year, a relatively modest change in the rate of retention would have a huge impact on total membership, and an even bigger positive impact on our ability to carry out the mission.

We need to learn from those sections that already have high rates of retention.