Canadian Blood Services - Case Analysis

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Canadians have been donating blood through Canadian Blood Services (CBS) since 1998. Since its inception, CBS has had to work hard to improve the public’s trust in blood transfusions due to the contamination concerns of the 1980’s. To date, the trust level has increased to 80% among Canadians.

As the director of marketing knowledge and donor insight, Stan Doolby has been tasked with keeping donation levels at a rate that can sustain the current 2% yearly increase in demand. Doolby is able to leverage the current strengths of CBS that include the friendly staff at over 43 permanent locations and 20,000 mobile clinics. There is also plenty of opportunity to grow the donor list as currently only 10% of qualified donors are participating. Weaknesses that Doolby has to improve upon include the cyclical nature of donations and the static number of donors over the last 15 years. External threats such as the unpredictability of demand and the short shelf life of blood will have an effect on his ability to succeed.

After identifying what strengths can be leveraged and which weaknesses need improving, CBS identified their competition. Direct competition includes other charitable organizations that require people to donate their time. Indirectly, CBS competes with the temptation of the public to avoid donate completely.

Although there are strict medical restrictions on who is eligible to donate blood, there are still roughly 12,000,000 Canadians who meet the qualifications. As it would be impossible to target each Canadian, CBS broke down the market into four segments including Community Givers, Life Savers, Personal Gratifiers, and Social Clubbers. Through analyzing these groups and the elements that make them up, CBS was able to determine that the group with the greatest potential to stimulate growth in the short and long term is the Community Givers.

With a cost of $377 to collect each unit of blood, CBS will have to cut costs or request increased funding in order to support the required growth.

The success of the campaign will be measured based on CBS’ ability to communicate the requirement for blood donations and attract a younger generation. Their success may be limited by uncertainties such as the units of blood required at any given time, disease outbreaks, and government funding.

Through all of this analysis, CBS developed three possible alternatives including a social media marketing campaign, offering incentives to donors or offering more places for people to donate. Through evaluating the pros and cons of each option, CBS settled on the first option of a social media marketing campaign.

The new campaign will focus on real life stories being told through social media networks. The use of opinion leaders will help to attract younger generations. The campaign will be evaluated on its effectiveness at the 6 and 12 month marks. If after a year the campaign has not been successful in increasing blood supplies, the increased donation center alternative will be implemented.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

In an effort to keep up with increased demand, Stan Doolby, the director of market knowledge and donor insight at Canadian Blood Services (CBS) must find a way to increase donation rates by 2%, or 18,000 units each year. This will have to be done by either attracting new donors or increasing donor retention.