UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

BPMM 6013
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
(GROUP ASSIGNMENT)
TITLE: CASE STUDY – 7-ELEVEN’S 30 HOUR
FAMINE CAMPAIGN

Prepared By:

V. Siri Logeswaren
siri@camfilfarr.com.my
Mathivaanan
mathiv69@yahoo.com

LECTURER:

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zolkafli bin Hussin

zolkafli@uum.edu.my

SUBMISSION DATE:
28th August 2010
Case study: 7-Eleven’s 30-Hour Famine Campaign

The “30-Hour Famine” is an annual international activity organized by World Vision of

Taiwan to provide financial aid to countries faced with disasters and emergencies. This camp was
introduced in Taiwan in the year 1989 with the support and participation of several other
companies including 7-Eleven.

We have all read about the persistent civil war in Somalia, where at least 300,000 people had died
and over a million others had escaped to the neighboring countries. The same incident happened
in Africa and the death total arose to 60 million. In 1992, the Ethiopians and Sudanese died of
hunger due to poverty, diseases and no proper food. Furthermore, due to pollution, they hardly
got clean water, medical attention and faced food shortage, which gradually is becoming a
universal problem. In February 1993, 7-Eleven participated in the campaign organized by World
Vision of Taiwan to raise NT$10,000,000 or 12.5% from its total target. Their target market was
those Taiwanese who had not participated before in this kind of charity work and all Taiwanese in
general.
They had used a two-prong strategy to encourage donations from the public. First, they
had aimed to persuade public who wanted to donate and secondly let them experience some mild
starvation to appreciate how lucky they were compared to those who really could not it. In this
campaign they had created a theme called “Saving a Life, Not Just a Relief”. An emotional ad
been created to evoke sympathy from viewers and motivate them to donate. Besides that, other
mass media such as television, radio, magazine and newspaper were used to deliver this message
to the Taiwanese people and other neighboring countries. Several promotion and activities were
organized in order to create awareness about the campaign to the public.
The 7-Eleven staff had done a tremendous job during the four month campaign by encouraging
their walk-in customers to donate. They also take the initiative to explain to their customers what
the purpose of this campaign is. At the end of the day, the donation was counted and witness in
front of a customer by the owner and staff. Those who bring in more customers to donate will be
awarded.
Financially, this campaign was a success, because World Vision had achieved their
NT$110,000,000 and furthermore they had achieved this within two years. The public responded

2
positively on the worthiness of the campaign and furthermore it had educated their children to
appreciate and be thankful for what they have now. 7-Eleven had done a wonderful job to make
this campaign a success and hoped the momentum would be maintained in future.

Question 1 : Apply the elements in the communication process to the “Saving A Life,
Not Just A Relief” advertisement.

Referring to the above case study, we can discuss the elements of communication
in two ways, which are the Macromodel and the Micromodel. The communication
process is illustrated in figure 1 below:

sender encoding message decoding receiver

media

noise

feedback response

Figure 1: Communication Process

In the Macromodel process, the World Vision of Taiwan, who is the sender, will encode
the message to the target market. The message will be encoded in the form of theme,
“Saving A Life, Not Just A Relief” and a short acted documentary. Based on the scene, it
creates a message to the target market. In this case, World Vision had used a mother
character which is the symbol of love and care. In the first scene their message is that the
mother can afford and she wants to give everything to her child as long as the child does
not go through hardship. But in the second scene is the African mother who is very poor,
weak and cannot afford to give food for the baby. Basically this scene creates a message

3
that the target market had to do something to help the poor or come forward to give a
helping hand to the poor either in the form of cash, food or clothing.
The sender can send this message through various types of media such as the
newspaper, radio, television, magazines, internet and so on. All these media will create
the message which needs to be encoded to the target market by the sender. The sender
can also encourage on the spot donations such as display a donation box at 7-Eleven or
any other participating outlets for instance where they have more walk-in customers.
Once the message had been encoded by the sender using various types of media,
then this message will be decoded by the receiver who will be the target market. They
will interpret the message based on their understanding, then followed by their action.
When the target market receives the message they understand the message, then they will
respond to the message, meaning after they watch the documentary, they will under stand
the message, then only will they respond with action. They will move forward to help the
poor either in the form of cash donations or food donations. Based on the case study, it
will be a positive responds because the message here is about humanity and it shows how
hard their life is without food.
Response from the receiver which is the target market, will give a feedback to the
sender whether the campaign received good support from the target market or vice versa.
From this feedback the sender will decide whether to move more aggressively to get
more donations or otherwise. As mentioned earlier, feedback received from the target
market can be positive feedback or negative feedback. If it is a positive feedback, the
sender can continue to communicate to the receiver but if it is negative feedback then
they have to find out what is the cause and correct the mistake so that it can enhance their
communication process and the message which they to deliver or communicate will be
more effective.
The second model which is the Micromodels, looks at the response hierarchy,
cognitive stage, through this communication process sender, World Vision of Taiwan and
how it had created awareness among the receiver or the target market.

4
Question 2. Describe how World Vision of Taiwan can use the response hierarchy
models in planning and evaluating its entire campaign.

World Vision could use AIDA model of the response hierarchy models to plan and
evaluate its entire campaign, as shown in Table 1 below:

Table 1: AIDA model

1. Advertisement on starving –
shows African refugees with
swelling bellies, African
mother with baby starving for
food
Attract or Attention
2. Campaign called “Saving a
Life, Not Just a Relief”
3. Advertise in newspapers and in
7-Eleven with poin-of-purchase
(POP) display
Interest 1. Promotions activities that could
interest donor:
a. Campus famine camp – to
create awareness
b. Cherishing bread –
encourage people to donate
any time
c. Subscription donations –
arrangement made with
post office
d. Famine bus – to sell
flowers
e. Games – with celebrities

5
 f. Others – African children
choir, film shows and etc
1. Advertisement that appeal
sympathy of Taiwanese
2. Awareness on the starvation
Desire
through media
3. Using celebrities to campaign
for the donation
1. Locate donation box in 7-Eleven
2. Customers invited to witness to
Action
counting – to show legitimate
3. Staff given awards

Question 3. Suggest at least two advertising theme(s) that World Vision of Taiwan
can use for the next “30 Hour Famine” campaign.

1. “Let’s Join Our Hand Together, To Help The Poor”

2. “Stop Starvation To Save Lives”

Question 4. It has been suggested that future campaign should include corporate
targets. How can they be involved in these campaigns? What can companies benefit
from participating in the campaigns?

Corporations are big companies that have huge turnover and employees. They are
companies that are involved in all sorts of businesses. Corporations could easily get
involved in these campaigns for following reasons:
1. Food based corporations: they could advertise these campaigns through their
brands, on the food packaging, and get customers to purchase products using a
donation theme.

6
 a. Through their brands – they can use their brand name with the
campaign theme behind their brand advertisement. Example: Revive
campaigning for orphaned children in Malaysia
b. On the food packaging – packaging that is used to pack food or drinks
could be used as the advertisement tool for the campaign.
c. Purchase with donation theme – small portion of money used to
purchase the food or a drink will be used as donation. Example: Mc
Donalds
2. Big corporation with their “Corporate Social Responsibility” and
“Sustainability” themes that could be used as an advertisement tool for the
campaign. Example: Tesco Malaysia through its CSR is working together
with MAKNA to create awareness and donation.
3. Government linked corporations could get involved in such campaigns by
creating a corporate culture among its staff as they will have a very high
number of employees.

Benefits that these companies will get by participating in the campaign are:
1. more attention given by consumers through the campaign
2. less tax imposed by authorities as advertisement tax will be waived as it is meant
to be for charity
3. bigger market to serve – can reach more people in the globe
4. make the brands more able reach to the people
5. less advertisement cost as advertising agents will impose lesser rate due to charity

7
8