Drop the Debt runs viral e-mail campaign

Howard Lake | 1 August 2001 | News

Drop the Debt has used a hard-hitting viral e-mail campaign to help persuade G8 leaders to write off the debts of African countries.

Drop the Debt sent its e-mail message to demonstrate how many children were dying “due to Third World debt.” The e-mail encouraged recipients to type in their birth debt, and this was used to calculate how many children had died since your last birthday as a result of the debt burden. The number then increased by one every 4.5 seconds.

The e-mail was sent to 16,000 people. Designed by Hedgeapple, the campaign services were donated since Drop the Debt said they had no advertising budget. The advert was seen by 61,000 people in the first week: clearly the viral nature of the message had taken off. A further 50,500 people viewed the ad in the second week. By the end of the G8 summit in Genoa 34,652 e-mails had been sent to the world leaders asking for the debt burden to be relieved.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.