• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, October 5, 2010

California's struggling economy has cut into donations to the Salvation Army, so it has launched a new campaign to increase awareness and boost in-kind donations to its thrift stores.

TV spots show cast-off items in a new way: A red T-shirt rolls up into a heart, for example, with the tagline: "One man's old shirt is another man's new start." In another, an old desk chair casts a heart-shaped shadow: "One person's chair is another's new outlook." Print ads are headlines: "It's easy to do good."

Aimed at middle-class families that might feel unable to make a cash donation, ads stress how easy it is to give, asking viewers to call 1-800-SA-TRUCK, or visit satruck.org.

"Donations are down this year, and we wanted to remind people that it's easy to give your old things away," Courtney Walker, group account director at PanCom International, the Salvation Army's Western Territory ad agency, tells Marketing Daily. "And our research found that people were unaware that they could call and schedule a pickup, so we wanted to emphasize the truck -- if you have a couch or old furniture, that can make all the difference."

In addition to TV, ads are running on radio, in local print, outdoor, and online, as well as nontraditional media such as dry-cleaning bags. There's also a guerilla marketing element, she says, with teams of 20 "brand ambassadors" -- including some former SA beneficiaries -- going out into six markets, who will go to shopping centers and busy venues to perform "random acts of kindness" for shoppers, wearing red Salvation Army T-shirts.

Increasing in-kind donations is especially important, Walker says, because sales of the donated goods is the sole source of funding for the charity's Adult Rehabilitation Centers (ARC).

The campaign will wind down at the end of October, as the national Salvation Army gears up for its holiday Red Kettle drives, aimed at collecting cash donations.