Ep 67: Building Viral Campaigns for Social Enterprises | Daniel Flynn (Co-Founder, Thankyou)

Daniel Flynn, co-founder of Thankyou, is one of Australia’s most
recognisable & successful social entrepreneurs. He is the
recipient of EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award (Southern Region)
and Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs.


Thankyou was conceived while Daniel was still in college and he
learned, to his horror, that there were 900 million people who
didn’t have access to clean water. 4500 kids were dying every day
from water-borne disease and the women needed to trek 20km by
foot to obtain clean water (they even risked being raped along
that trecherous journey!).


Determined to make a difference, Daniel, his girlfriend (now
wife) Justine and friend, Jared Burns, got together as first-year
university students to launch the consumer brand now known as
Thankyou.


Since 2008, Thankyou has raised over $17 million and impacted the
lives of people across 22 countries. Thankyou’s products can be
found in major retailers across Australia & 100% of its
profits go towards ending extreme global poverty.


Thankyou has run many viral campaigns. To get 7-Eleven to stock
Thankyou Water, they produced a youTube video that asked their
followers to visit the 7-Eleven Australia Facebook page to
promise to buy Thankyou water if it was stocked. Within two
weeks, they had fans singing, dancing and rapping, and it was
covered all over the media. 7-Eleven said yes & Thankyou
became the third best selling brand (they were also top at
certain points in time).


A similar viral campaign happened when they tried to get Coles
and Woolworths, which controlled over 70% of Australia’s grocery
market share, to stock Thankyou products. This time, they
launched a video called the Coles and Woolworths campaign and
also had two helicopters flown over Coles and Woolworths’
respective headquarters in Melbourne and Sydney. Unsurprisingly,
both said yes!


And again in 2015, Daniel wrote a bestselling book, Chapter One,
which generated over $1.4 million in sales & sold over 55,000
copies in its first month using an unorthodox ‘pay-what-you-want’
model.


However, these viral successes came after Daniel and his team
experienced a great deal of setbacks. 


We explore all that and more in this episode. 


Highlights:


4:00 Selling helicopters, yabbies & gobstoppers as a
child

5:15 Wanting to enter property development

6:14 Learning about how 900 million people don’t have access
to clean water (the genesis of Thankyou)

10:17 Whether Daniel knew what a “social enterprise” was in
the early days

11:21 Figuring out how to enter the water industry as
19-year-olds

13:39 Getting his business coach to donate $20,000

17:57 Experiencing huge setbacks

21:39 Deciding to not pivot

22:54 The idea behind the viral 7-Eleven campaign to stock
Thankyou water

24:54 Running the viral Coles & Woolworths campaign

27:37 Building a core base of fans

29:46 Managing the risks behind each campaign

33:22 The “uncomfortable middle”

34:46 Being almost crushed by the pressure

42:19 Deciding to leave the water industry

44:16 How Daniel & the Thankyou team celebrate their wins

45:27 Any big idea Daniel has changed his mind on recently






Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/67  


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