Cardboard Media

Russian marketplace helped homeless people to be heard by putting their messages on the delivery boxes and offering an option to donate clothes and other basics.

We transformed an ordinary delivery packaging into a platform for impact. By putting the messages from cardboard signs used by the homeless on delivery boxes, we helped their words reach tens of thousands of homes daily. «Every little bit helps», «Help homeless from home», «Help with clothes» or «Good deed will fit here», — one of these messages on the box engages people into a simple act of help — to fill this box with some necessities for homeless people and to send it free of charge to the oldest charity organization of the city, Nochlezhhka.

We relied on the element of surprise which would make people talk about this campaign. And it worked. We brought homelessness issue into focus. The project’s website was visited by more than 50% of all buyers who received these special boxes. 1 of 100 sent the box with necessities to Nochlezhka.

We received tons of comments with one general message: don’t stop. And we won’t. We are planning to continue our collaborations with other charities that might need things from our customers, delivered in our boxes, by our delivery ecosystem. We hope our experiment will spread to other online retailers now that they’ve seen how effective cardboard media can be.