Imaginif

Article by Megan Bayliss.

Phew! Website development and design has finally slowed down. University teaching has finished for the semester and I finally have the time to mount Imaginif’s advertising and marketing campaigns for the website - particularly our Safety Talk forum.

 On order are two exciting Imaginif promotional products: a magnetic words jigsaw for the kids and parents to play with on the fridge door and some rather groovy chatterboxes. These products will be given away to our target groups:

• parents of children under age 12
• professionals in the wide and varied sector of child safety/protection, and
• parents of teenagers.

Distribution points will be global and initially through our Imaginif bloggers. The sets of 12 magnets and chatterboxes will be posted to our bloggers to hand out. This method was chosen as the most cost effective way to deliver child safety messages and to provide our bloggers with maximum exposure for their own commitment to the cause of child safety.

The cost of advertising scares me senseless. Print material too readily ends up in the rubbish bin. Many promotional products are of little value to families and collect dust on top of the microwave. We want our promotional products to bring value to a family. We want something that is educational, fun and usable. We want something affordable and wide reaching. Whereas the cost of advertising scared me senseless (or perhaps centsless would be an appropriate pun here) the creativity in designing Imaginif’s promotional products also drove me senseless - all adult sense out the window and approach the project through the eyes of a child with a knowing of what makes them feel safe. In short, I have had a TERRIFIC time designing something that most families will appreciate. Stay tuned. I will let you know when they’ve arrived and to where they’re being posted (America, England and Australia).

Google adwords are working for us. There’s four ads showing on pages around the world. The ad with the most views is:

This really surprised me and I guess I have much to learn about advertising. The ad tells me nothing about the blogs by different child safety writers, nothing about the interactive Safety Talk forum and nothing about the FREE gift on forum registration. Ummm, perhaps tapping the element of curiosity is the key. Can an advertising guru reader clarify this for me?

The rate of hits has not yet equated to registrations in the forum. While registration and conversation is what we aim to achieve, it is still early days. The new site has been operational for less than two weeks. However, I am pleased to announce that we now have 24 registered forum users and a couple of them are a real chatty bunch. Check them out and say hi.

We have opened a board for kids to talk to other kids. This has been implemented sooner than we anticipated because of the eagerness of my eleven year old son. Concerned about safety aspects of children and on-line chatting, I urgently require a couple of moderators to hang out in the board. The police are in and out, doing their regular sweeps and checks but they’re hardly going to spend the time welcoming kids, chatting to them about safety issues and engaging in the rot that makes kids, kids. Any takers for voluntary moderators (conditions apply)? The board is private and can only be seen once somebody has registered.

Similarly, we have raised a private board called Survivors and Affects of Child Abuse. Because of the sensitive nature of posts we decided it was best viewed only by those who had made a conscious decision to join the largest on-line child protection conversation in the world. 

And finally, we are seeking like minded people, people like you, to help us create an on-going child protection conversation. Links and referrals to us will be greatly appreciated. Your reward is your willingness to assist in keeping children safe and the knowledge that you are strengthening families everywhere by using no more than a word of mouth referral.

Take care and stay safe everyone. Imaginif…child protection became serious business. Imaginif…you helped it.