I love people who think outside the box, and much like I loved The Million Dollar Home Page, I love Briget’s my R260 car campaign.
The premise is simple, Briget needs a new car and she’s come up with a plan to get it. Basically, she’s worked out that if 500 people each give her R260, she’ll reach her goal of R130,000 for the new car. In return, each person who sponsors her the R260 will receive a link and avatar on her website and her website will be clearly advertised on her car.
Love it!
I’ve donated R260 towards the cause and I’m challenging you to do the same, obviously if you can afford to.
Well done Briget!
If you’re keen to donate R260, then click here.
Ah but does Bridget need a R130000 car on the generosity of others?!
Dunno – just stirring the pot…
Hehe,
Sure Marc, I guess we could take that attitude and I’m sure a lot of people would, but for me, well, if I was in need one day, I would hope that others would assist me :)
As always, just playing devils advocate. Comes back to our previous discussion about the whole concept of social lending (AngelMoola, CrowdFund etc).
Asking 500 people to buy you a car is fantastic use of the concept but then there has to be a point where you are giving something back surely? If she had said for every R260, R130 will go to charity XYZ. If it had come off, she would have gotten a car and a charity would have been R70k better off.
I dunno – that’s my interpretation of the power of social lending?
Nothing wrong with that Marc, creates good conversation! Yes, she could have done that, but she is offering advertising in return and these things often tend to get a great deal of hype, which means that 500 contributors will see a ROI at the end of the day..
:-)
Thank you Chris ! ;-)
Pleasure Brigit, care to comment on Marc’s remarks?
Hi Mark,
I hear what you say, and I never said my concept was perfect. It is after all very new and different.
Please Note, I am not attempting a social lending campaign…
What I am offering is an advertising campaign for 3 years for a measly R260.
The difference between what I am doing and any other business is I am telling you what I plan to do with the money and allowing everyone to participate in a friendly and fun manner.
As for the charity 50/50 split, it isn’t half a bad idea. But that would also leave me with a R70 000 car and this whole exercise is to get a safe, reliable car that I can also fit all my kiddies in if need be.(not a cheap imported tin box)
R70 000 would leave me with a secondhand car which may/may not be dodgy.And might not even last the three years that I am offering the advertising.
Does this answer your questions?
:-) Briget
Thanks for answering Briget – I totally understand why you need that amount, so I’m sold, hence my donation :)
Let’s see if Marc can agree or if he wants to argue further ;)
Oh I definately want to argue further. I must just pop into a meeting quickly and then I will add my humble opinions.
Ah, no such luck Briget, let’s wait and see what Marc has to say this time :P
*le sigh*
* le wait*
Don’t get me wrong – I wrote on my blog I love the fact that people like you are playing with the concept of social lending. Maybe we’ll even one day be able to rid ourselves of those scum of the bankers who pollute Sandton on a day to day basis.
I just raise the point that it doesn’t fit with what I consider social lending.
The car:
Your new car is going to lose between 20% and 30% of its resale value from the time you drive it off the floor so its in reality worth say R95k by the time it arrives home.
A second hand car is going to lose far less (especially considering the depressed state of the 2nd hand car market in SA). For R95k you can probably buy a decent 2 or 3 year old 3 series Beemer (although it will kill you in maintenance costs so would probably go for a Toyota or a VW).
As a parent to 3 children I get reliability
Social media / social lending:
I disagree that it is not a social lending / social media campaign.
The beneficiary is you and the product is the advertising attached to the campaign. The lenders are the community (or complete strangers)
You don’t have 500 friends so you’ve asked people to spread the word and strangers to lend to you – that’s social lending in my books.
The advertising you sell will probably be relevant for the few months around your hype / “campaign”. 1 year later, will anybody remember that you’ve done this campaign or they’ve given you R260?
All valid arguments..and I can back and forth all week ;-)
But let me close with this…
An idea, we all have them, we all see them, have various ways we feel we can improve on them. But how many of us actually act on them?
Thanks for the feedback and be rest assured I am listening and will continue to improve my ideas/implementation accordingly ;-)
B
I’m so glad to see another blogger spreading the word. I support Briget’s initiative 100%.
And let me reiterate that it is a fantastic idea! I just conclude that if we are opening the door to social lending then we need to keep these ideas in mind.
What about the tax implications?
I definitely think that what Marc says is valid, but I agree more with Briget’s remark about how many of us act on it. If Briget was to sit and iron out hundreds of details and equations to find lower rates and so on, the idea would never have become a reality. I still think it’s a great initiative, one that is somewhat unique in South Africa and one which I hope will work completely.
I do have one question though, what happens if R130,000 is not raised? Everyone is under the impression that they’re getting advertising which includes a link on the website, which gets traffic from a specific car – would everyone be refunded? Only thought of this one! :)
Yes tax is a good question but Chris’ question raises something I wanted to bring up but thought it might be a thorny issue…
… whose to say that the R130k will be used for a car? If I put my R260 into Bridgets account today and she needs R200 to buy groceries and she dips into this amount (statistically with SA’s savings rate, this is more than possible)… How do we know that the money is being used for the purpose it was destined.
Just a thought.
Definitely Marc, at the end of the day, there’s a level of trust. I know Briget from the blog realm and I feel that she’s good for her word and that’s why I didn’t hesitate to contribute. Further to this, I wouldn’t put this out on my blog if I had any doubt. At the end of the day (I wonder when cut-off is), she’ll provide pictures and all sorts to show the car.
No doubt in my mind.
I’m not sure how she’s planning to advertise, but with 500 adverts on a website chances are the R260 investment isn’t going to take you very far.
Unless I knew her personally, I wouldn’t donate anything to her. She wants a car for herself and found a way to monetize the public without giving anything back.
@Mike – R260 mate, if you get 100 clicks from the advert, that’s not shabby at all and it’ll probably go higher than 100 clicks. That’s not all, remember the number of backlinks she’s getting from this campaign, paying R260 for a solid backlink to your site is cheap!
Fair enough, if you don’t want to contribute, NO ONE will judge you :)
I love debate!
Well, since its such a new site, the backlink potential is really not going to help your rankings. Also, you are 1 in 500, so even getting 10 clicks is unlikely.
If her site is the kind of site your audience would visit, go for it.
PPC is a much better investment IMHO.
I’m not knocking the idea (too much) but it has been thrown out there so it might as well be debated.
I agree with Mike – If I am one of 500 ads, I might get the backlink but I’m not sure there are that many “advertising” benefits out of it… even if it at 24c a day or whatever it worked out as .
Ah ye, what do I know about SEO *shrugs*