A Valuable Cardboard Box

da Maud Largeaud , AdForum

While most of us were confined to our homes during the pandemic, the homeless had nowhere to go. Not only that, but layoffs increased the number of people on the streets, while donations to homeless charities slumped. Russian e-commerce platform Yandex decided to act, by emblazoning its delivery boxes with genuine messages from needy people on the streets. But the initiative didn’t just raise awareness of the homeless – it effectively helped them by encouraging consumers to fill the empty boxes with useful items for people on the streets, which Yandex then shipped for free. Certainly a useful PR exercise for Yandex, but also a way of allowing consumers to donate as well as buy.