ARALE: The iCHANCE campaign

Bundesverband Alphabetisierung und Grundbildung
Germany

The iCHANCE campaign directly addresses young adults through a multimedia campaign. It is designed to motivate them to participate in basic education programs. It targets young adults between the ages of 17 and 27 – and aims at raising awareness on illiteracy problems.

Many companies and artists already support our iCHANCE Campaign. Musicians, actors and football players have taken part in the campaign by recording small videos and posting them online. A special YouTube partner channel, supported by Google in Germany, was set up to host the videos, The messages encourage young people to get basic education and improve their reading and writing skills. According to project director Timm Helten, “stars are role models for young people. When artists´ are involved with iCHANCE, they promote the need for better basic education and give disadvantaged young people the courage to change something in their lives”.

This idea was launched on International Literacy Day in 2008. Since then, we have launched several cross media campaigns. The main campaign takes place every year, all across Germany. A print campaign also takes place: 80 000 postcards promoting the webpage www.ichance.de are printed and sent out all over Germany, by distribution provider CityCard. The cards are placed in restaurants, bars and clubs.

On the webpage, young people can find help and a free hotline number, the “Alpha-Telefon”, that will provide them with information about where they can find a class to help them with illiteracy issues.

Media:

Social media activities, press journey, talk/discussions

Achievements:

Reports in German: http://www.profi.ichance.de/index.php?id=3

Key elements of success:

  • Sponsoring from and cooperation with different media partners and literacy organisations
  • Specific content (funny, informational, innovative, well designed) aimed at the target group
  • Support from celebrities

Resources: