Wheel Houz™ Launches Youth Marketing Campaign in support of 8 UN Millennium Development Goals

Sept. 8, 2010 - PRLog -- Contact Information:
Anne Andiorio, President
Wheel Houz, LLC  732.539.9271
anne@wheelhouz.com

Wheel Houz™ Launches Global Wheel Houz 5 Yrs & Counting Youth Marketing & Fundraising Campaign in support of the 8 UN Millennium Development Goals At UN Headquarters Event with Fiver Children’s Foundation

Mobile App Developed by PopRule™ Also Unveiled For Use by Participants
and Brands to Build Support for Their Goal Teams

Wheel Houz, LLC, (http://wheelhouz.com) an innovative inquiry-based applications company for ages 4-18, today announced the launch of its Global Wheel Houz 5 Yrs & Counting (GWH5) collaborative youth marketing and fundraising campaign.  The campaign, launched with Fiver Children’s Foundation (www.fiver.org), is a high-engagement, corporate social responsibility program for brands and was developed to raise awareness in support of the United Nations 8 (eight) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  Unveiled today, at International Literacy Day events held at UN Headquarters were the campaign’s UN Goal Wheel Making Application, and Mobile Goal Team Building app developed by PopRule (www.poprule.com).

Two Part CSR Campaign Consists of a Goal Team Building Phase Beginning October 1 and Auction Phase

With Proceeds to NGOs Working Toward Advancing Achievement of the Goals
The GWH5 Campaign consists of a Global Youth and Celebrity Online Wheel Making Contest centered on the use of graphical emblems and slogans developed utilizing the patent-pending Wheel Houz Online Wheel Making Application.  The wheel making process consists of three steps that young people are able to navigate themselves: answering a series of questions regarding which goal is being depicted, translating these answers into a visual representation (wheel emblem) and submitting the finished “wheel” to the Wheel Houz online gallery of wheels organized by UN goals.  Just one of the Wheel Houz inquiry-based educational applications for helping young people develop a sense of themselves in the world, the entire process can be viewed at the campaign’s beta site http://wheelhouz.com/demo. Young people can participate independently or in groups, in the classroom or at home, as a part of - or separately from - a broader social studies curriculum

“The GWH5 Campaign is centered on empowering youth to make a contribution to solving important issues by teaming them with corporate brands whose missions are aligned with any one or several of the UN Millennium Goals,” said Anne Andiorio, President of Wheel Houz.  “Brands have the opportunity to join any one (or all) of the goal teams, recruit their partners to join their team(s) and, for the portion where wheels will be auctioned to raise money for the goals, recruit employee participation and match their donations.  Additionally, corporate foundation arms can get involved, extending the impact of the teams by linking to their own initiatives.”

According to Andiorio, participation units provide an entry point that makes the Campaign accessible to small brands while larger brands can purchase multiple units per goal or across goals to increase their position in the Campaign.  Team members will be able to compare team stats across teams, match and compare themselves to other participants and track the latest developments for each of the goal teams.  Brands can chose to engage by purchasing one or more sponsor units starting at $25,000 each or lead a group of partners.  Sponsor brands will “travel” with each goal wheel in the category they are supporting and on goal category pages on a fractional purchase basis (i.e., percentage of units) both online and on the mobile app.  

“Campaign participants including sponsor brands can also use the mobile app developed to solicit others to join their goal team via smart phones, including iPhone and Blackberry devices, to friends and associates or posting the app on Facebook, blogs, or any other popular destination including goal sponsor websites,” said Larry Eason, President of DotOrgPower and long time advisor to Wheel Houz and strategic partner of PopRule.  “Using the action platform technology from PopRule, goal team developments, including number of members, prominent figures joining, sponsoring brands, and latest and most viewed wheels will be provided in a feed on the mobile app.”  

A Powerful Coalition for Advancing the Achievement of the UN MDGs for a Better World by 2015

“All children want to be heard, for their ideas to matter, and to make a difference,” said Tom Tucker, founder of Fiver Children’s Foundation.  “Fiver's leadership and character development program is the core of the Fiver 10 year experience and includes helping our participants develop a sense of citizenship to a broader community.  Participating in the GWH5 campaign has enabled us to help them see problems from a global perspective where they can contribute by explaining themselves and their ideas, in their own words, with their own information, for their own satisfaction and inspiration.”

Starting in January, 2011, an expanded donation and bidding phase will commence culminating in an auction of goal wheels.  Tickers for amounts raised per goal will be displayed online beginning with the launch of the text to give campaign during the community building phase and run through the completion of the auction.  All proceeds from the auction are being donated to NGOs (non-profits) working to support the advancement of the goals.  UNICEF and UNESCO have been designated as recipients for all proceeds generated for Goal No. 1 and 2 while participants in the community wheel making phase can make suggestions and vote for suggestions for recipients of the proceeds for the other 6 goals.  

About Wheel Houz
Wheel Houz is focused on providing children, ages 418, with a new way of looking at information and themselves by helping them develop, ask and answer questions about themselves, others and the world.  The Company’s patent-pending inquiry-based applications are structured to allow children to navigate information, formulate responses and self-publish these responses in a visual, profile-based game format.  Built on a patent-pending, interface layer innovation that makes customization for multiple educational and social purposes extremely efficient, its self-assessment applications were first embraced by It’s My Life®, an award winning PBS Kids website for Tweens.  The Wheel Houz online self-assessment game It’s My Life developed under license from Wheel Houz can be viewed at (http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/games/wheelhouz).  

Note:  The UN goals include:  1Eradicate Extreme Poverty & Hunger 2Achieve Universal Primary Education 3Promote Gender Equality & Empower Women 4Reduce Childhood Mortality 5Improve Maternal Health 6Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria & Other Diseases 7Ensure Environmental Sustainability, and 8Global Partnership for Development.

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Wheel Houz, LLC provides patent-pending, inquiry-based applications are structured to allow children to navigate information, formulate responses and self-publish these responses in a visual, profile-based game format.