To be frank, I’m not surprised that Oxfam has again launched a pretty innovative marketing initiative to leverage their revenue potential and to continue their fight against poverty. Oxfam GB’s marketing campaigns have in the past years constantly impressed me by their innovative, clever and consumer oriented approaches!

Now they have joined forces with Britain’s biggest fashion retailer Marks & Spencer for a special promotion: “The M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange”. Whoever donates a bag of clothes containing at least one item of M&S clothing to one of Oxfam’s 790 high street shops across the UK and Ireland, will in return receive a £5 M&S voucher off the next purchase of £35 or more in M&S. Vouchers will be valid for one month.

The clothes exchange runs for a six-month trial from January 28.

Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam, said: “Recycling and reusing clothes - and anything else we can sell - has always been central to Oxfam’s fundraising, as well as being good for the environment.”

The benefits for both partners are obvious. The M&S voucher is on the one hand an incentive to go shopping at M&S. On the other hand it encourages customers to recycle their clothes, and is very likely to increase the revenue of Oxfam’s shops through the increased traffic in the shops and all the new (M&S) offerings.