Charity Advertising: Making an Appeal

Instead of enticing consumers to buy into fantasy worlds that have been improved by the purchase of a particular lager or flatpack wardrobe, charity ads must convey messages about ugly realities that nobody wants to hear – and ask for handouts. Isobel Roberts explores the challenges of addressing skint audiences with compassion fatigue and asks what the agencies get out of it.

Think back to some of the most memorable ad images that have been etched onto your brain over the years, and the chances are that there is at least one charity campaign in there. Powerful imagery and persuasive messaging have long been the bread and butter of charity advertising, which needs to make as big a splash as possible in an overcrowded media marketplace with limited funds. But with thousands of deserving causes out there and compassion fatigue among consumers rife, despite its worthiness the charity scene is still a difficult market.

“The biggest challenge is that you have to get people, who are busier than they’ve ever been, to give a shit about your cause or the message you’re trying to convey,” says Vicki Maguire, creative director for the British Heart Foundation at Grey London. “It’s harder now than ever – not just because people are strapped for both cash and time, but because of the sheer amount of charities that now exist, and need support. This is where a good agency is crucial: it’s a tough environment but the opportunities to really stand out are still there. It’s a recipe for innovation and really original thinking.”

Diminishing funds sees philanthropy failing

But even with good creative, as economies flatline and recession drags on across many parts of the globe, charities can be a hard sell as organisations fight for a slice of the donation pie. According to an annual survey from the Charities Aid Foundation and National Council for Voluntary Organisations, donations in the UK fell by 20 per cent in real terms during 2011 to 2012, compared with the previous year, decreasing from £11 billion to £9.3 billion – glum figures indeed for the non-profit sector. The picture in the US is slightly less bleak, with donations increasing four per cent nationally during 2011, but overall donations were still down $11 billion from a high of $309.7 billion in 2007. Competition is tough, and for agencies it’s not just enough to get a cause out into the public arena – they need to encourage consumers to actually dig deep and hand over their cash to a particular effort.

“Inevitably charities aren’t just looking to raise awareness for their cause,” comments Nik Studzinski, executive creative director at Droga5 New York, an agency that’s worked on charity projects such as the UNICEF Tap Project and UN’s World Humanitarian Day. “They’re looking for action, more often than not in the form of a donation. The transaction is unique because you’re asking people to give away their hard-earned cash and not receive anything particularly tangible in return. What they ‘get’ is a feeling that they’ve contributed, that they’ve helped, that they’ve made a difference in some way. It’s emotional, not material. With that in mind the responsibility is to make them truly understand the issue, first and foremost, and then to give them a compelling reason to act.”

Dörte Spengler-Ahrens, MD and creative director at Jung von Matt/Fleet in Hamburg, and the lead on the shop’s award-winning Save as WWF campaign, echoes a similar sentiment: “In the chorus of a million messages, charity messages are even harder to get across than product messages. Why? Because they do not speak about attractive offers but, most of the time, about unpleasant truths. Plus, it is not enough to inform people, you need to activate people – to donate for example. And if this was not hard enough, there is also the problem of the growing immunity of the audience. They have been penetrated so often on charity issues that they have grown a certain immunity against it. That means you have to ‘wrap’ your message in a new way or build it in a Trojan horse, as we say here at Jung von Matt.”

One tried and tested formula that charity advertising has often turned to is shock tactics. With limited media spend, it’s often a one-shot attempt at getting audiences to sit up and take notice, and presenting them with distressing and intrusive images can be a sure-fire way to do that. But it’s also a fine line between igniting empathy and turning people off the cause altogether. A 2012 study from the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) showed that many participants, particularly children, felt some charity and PSA advertising went too far, and two charity commercials – one for Marie Stopes and one for Barnardo’s – feature in the ASA’s ten most complained about ads, although neither set of complaints were upheld (incidentally, the most complained about commercial featured call-centre workers speaking with their mouths crammed full of KFC – nothing, it appears, offends the British more than bad manners).

“Heart-wrenching scenes are a short cut to guilting people into action but equally into making people turn away,” continues Droga5’s Studzinski. “The only way to approach people to do something for your charity is with integrity and respect – to trust that if you behave in this way then at the very least people will listen to what you have to say. Credit your audience with intelligence and compassion, but be aware that they are quite often bombarded with similar requests from many different organisations. Choosing who they respond to depends almost entirely on the way and the moment they’re approached.”

The most successful campaigns then strike a balance between arousing emotion while tackling the hard truth in an honest way that fits with the charity’s message, and ultimately encourages engagement. One brand that has consistently taken a hard-hitting approach – and won much applause as well as controversy for it – is UK children’s charity Barnardo’s. In partnership with its agency BBH London, the organisation has produced distinctive campaigns from its Heroin Baby press ads, to the more recent TVCs Break the Cycle, Turnaround and Life Story, but for ECD on the account, Nick Gill, the issues at stake around Barnardo’s work demand this potent plan of attack: “It’s important to try and be really honest and really true to the cause. Because [it’s a children’s] cause, I think it’s important to get the arguments and sensitivities around the subject right and move people in a really powerful way and I don’t think that’s about shock tactics in the traditional sense. Of course you’re talking about real case studies that are in themselves alarming and you want to make people feel uncomfortable and drag them out of their comfort zones, but I wouldn’t subscribe to shock tactics.”

Zero budgets and positive cancer ads

One challenge for Barnardo’s has been communicating the broad reach of its work. Convincing the public to support their particular cause over the myriad options out there – everything from the environment to poverty to animal welfare and beyond – is where creativity comes to the fore. But it’s not just competition from other charity sectors that drives the need for inventiveness of ideas, it’s also the challenge to recruit donors to your particular brand over organisations working in the same field. To tackle this issue for client Cancer Research UK, London agency AMV BBDO decided to put a different spin on its latest campaign for the brand. “They wanted to differentiate themselves from the other cancer charities,” says creative partner Tim Riley. “Macmillan and Marie Curie do brilliant work helping people with cancer but Cancer Research UK is the only charity that can actually bring forward the day when all cancers are cured. Our job was to demonstrate the value of research, and on a personal level I wanted to do a cancer ad that was positive. Many charities do very powerful and affecting work showing the pain and distress that cancer causes and it clearly works well. I just wondered whether it was possible to turn the tables: instead of presenting us as the victim of cancer, to portray cancer as the victim of us.”

Directed by Frank Budgen, the recent spot, Enemy, is visually striking and focuses on science overcoming cancer through research. It’s a creative piece of filmmaking and, certainly, the opportunity to push creativity in charity work and then reap the rewards on the awards circuit is a no brainer for most shops. Charity and PSA campaigns are still ineligible to win any Grand Prix in the general categories at Cannes Lions, but the introduction of the Grand Prix for Good at the festival in 2010 is helping drive up the innovation in the category no matter what the budget is. Because while most large charitable organisations do bring money to the table for agencies’ services, for other smaller causes this isn’t always an option – but that’s not to say that the results of a campaign can’t be wide-reaching and impactful with no money but an effective idea.

This was the case for Publicis Netherlands, who were approached by the Dutch branch of the ALS Foundation – a non-profit organisation dealing with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease – to help craft an awareness campaign. With zero budget, the agency came up with a hard-hitting idea; nine sufferers took part in the filming and shooting of an ad campaign, but with the rapid onset of the fatal disease, the project was named I Have Already Died and the footage was aired after the participants had passed away. As well as TV, radio, online and print ads – with space donated by Starcom – the campaign made headlines across the country and the families of the sufferers appeared as ambassadors across national TV and press. It was a forceful message, but one that both the foundation and agency strongly believed in, says creative director Marcel Hartog: “Our own feeling about the campaign was that it is impactful, but very straight-forward and true. The patients and board were also convinced this was the right thing to do. Still, we expected some negative feedback and our PR experts were ready to react. Big surprise: the campaign received a warm welcome everywhere. We had to wait three months before the first complaint was reported.”

In another project showcasing the reach that can be achieved with zero ad dollars, Saatchi & Saatchi Milan recruited its regular clients to help promote the national integration day of CoorDown, an Italian Down syndrome charity. On 21 March 2012, brands such as Illy Coffee, Toyota and Pampers ran versions of their regular TV and press adverts but with Down syndrome actors as the stars, and the agency staff also tapped their media connections to secure slots on national TV shows for those with the condition. “The mechanism was brilliant because it was simple,” says ECD Agostino Toscana. “We said ‘we’ll use our clients existing campaigns but with a small change’. So the clients would just pay for a small additional media space, but it was for airing their own campaign. And all of us really used every connection we have in show business etc to get space in TV shows and in the news.”

Beyoncé spreads a humanitarian message online

Another indispensable tool for organisations with few resources for media spend has been digital and social media. The ability to kick-start conversations and campaigns online has amplified an organisation’s reach manifold times – during Droga5’s project for the UN’s World Humanitarian Day last August, which culminated in the release of a specially-dedicated Beyoncé track, more than one billion messages were shared across social media networks stating solidarity for the cause, reach that would have been most likely impossible, if not prohibitively expensive, in the offline realm.

Technology has also created the possibility to add in fresh, interactive dimensions to charity campaigns. One recent award-winning example is DDB Paris’ initiative to raise funds for the building of a new Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior. Rather than release a tired direct marketing call for donations, the agency developed a website featuring a 3D model of the ship that visitors could explore. To raise funds for the build, individual items – everything from GPS devices to flare guns to buoys – could then be purchased for the ship by supporters, with a certificate awarded and the buyer’s name added to a wall of dedication on the real Rainbow Warrior, currently being built in Germany. “We thought that in times of crisis, a classic campaign would have touched nobody because everybody has problems more important to take care of, or at least people think so,” explains the campaign’s executive creative director Alexandre Hervé. “A very captivating, funny and personal campaign was needed, and the use of social media allowed it to be more personal and more effective.”

Do agencies do charity for the good or the glory?

Even for charities with marketing and advertising budgets to spend however, with modest cash flows compared to traditional clients, financial reward is obviously not the main incentive for agencies to sign up a charity account. So what do agencies see as the benefits? “The idealistic answer would be it allows agencies to use their unique skills and expertise for the common good, in a way that benefits society,” comments AMV’s Riley. “The cynical answer would be that charity accounts allow agencies to do powerful work. It can help you win awards, raise your profile and attract new clients. I suspect the real answer is probably a mixture of both.”

Claims that charity accounts are simply awards fodder or vanity projects still surface from time to time, and there’s no denying that the creative boundaries are broader for charity campaigns. Still, for the majority of agencies, working with charities is not a whole lot different from collaborating with any client. Whatever the motives behind it, the work still needs to produce results and create real impact for the cause, and an emotional connection is the best way of securing this.

“The hard truth is the most powerful weapon any charity has and the trick is delivering that truth in a fresh way,” sums up Jason Williams, ECD and creative lead for Scope at Leo Burnett Melbourne. “Many charities choose to use the hard truth in a conventional manner, which inevitably ends up feeling familiar or emotionally inept. The charity brand that activates the hard truth in an emotional and creative way will have a better chance of connecting to donors. People want to feel an emotional attachment to their charity; they want to feel like their contribution is making a difference. Our job is to do that better than the next charity.”

With those less-than-optimistic figures on donation amounts, the stakes for organisations dependent on goodwill giving are higher than ever. When it comes to charity advertising and the challenge for agencies then, the cause here for them must surely be creativity.

Appealing ads: some recent eye catchers in the charity sector

Scope: SeeThe Person

Leo Burnett Melbourne

Taking inspiration from Scope’s mantra ‘See the person, not the disability’, Leo Burnett Melbourne recruited local band, Rudely Interrupted, to star in the campaign, which scored the 2011 Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Good. With five of the six members living with a physical and/or intellectual disability, the promo-style campaign video began in a darkened studio, forcing viewers to appreciate the music on its own merits before seeing the performers as the line-up was revealed.

UN: WorldHumanitarian Day

Droga5 New York

Launched in 2008, World Humanitarian Day honours those who work for, or have even died for, humanitarian causes. For the 2012 edition, Droga5 decided to aim high with a global campaign of solidarity. Supported by brands and celebrities, the campaign kicked off with videos from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Beyoncé and culminated with more than one billion messages of support being shared across social media on the actual day, August 19.

WWF: Saveas WWF

Jung von Matt Hamburg

This innovative yet simple campaign for the wildlife charity created a whole new file format to help save the planet. Raising awareness that one million tons of paper are used across the world every day, Jung von Matt developed the new WWF file. Almost identical to a PDF, the distinct difference was that the print function had been disabled. As well as helping to raise awareness, the Save as WWF software has been downloaded more than 53,000 times across 193 countries.

Human RightsWatch: Burma

JWT New York

As part of the 2100 in 2010 campaign for Human Rights Watch, which called for the release of Burma’s estimated 2,100 political prisoners still being held during Burma’s elections in 2010, JWT New York grabbed the attention of commuters in NYC’s busy Grand Central station with an interactive installation. Made up of hundreds of prison cells, on closer inspection the bars were in fact pencils that could be removed and then used to sign a petition calling for the release of the captives.

Keep A Child Alive:Digital Death

TBWAChiatDay New York

To coincide with World AIDS Day in 2010, TBWAChiatDay New York pulled in a raft of A-listers for a campaign for grass-roots HIV/AIDS charity Keep A Child Alive. Staging ‘digital deaths’, high-profile names such as Lady Gaga, Elijah Wood, Justin Timberlake, Kim Kardashian and Usher removed themselves from all social media until $1 million was pledged to the cause, with media around the campaign including images of the celebrities in coffins.

CASE STUDY 1

Going in hard and stayin’ alive

Vicki Maguire, CD on Grey London’s Stayin’ Alive campaign for the BHF, talks us through a spot about hands-only CPR that had rather heartwarming results – it not only garnered around 2.8 million YouTube views but is accredited with saving 28 lives

“Thousands of people in the UK die from cardiac arrest every year. And of those who collapse outside of a hospital, only 10 per cent survive. BHF [British Heart Foundation] research indicated the biggest reason for people not helping those who have collapsed was a fear of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Fear of infection and a lack of knowledge made people hesitate – and that meant people were dying. What people don’t realise is that once someone has collapsed, any help increases their chances of survival. Our brief was to educate – in just 40 seconds – an uninterested, uneducated and unwilling audience in the basics of hands-only CPR. We decided to use British-cum-Hollywood hardman Vinnie Jones to convey the fact that you have to push really hard – and don’t worry about possibility of cracking the victim’s ribs. Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees has the perfect rhythm for chest compressions (between 100 and 120 beats-per-minute) and the song title itself was a gift we couldn’t refuse. Vinnie loved the campaign and was on-board from day one. It immediately resonated with him as there’s a history of heart disease in his family.

“Later on in the campaign we introduced ‘Mini Vinnie’ – as children aren’t taught CPR in schools but are eminently able to save a life, we thought it an important aspect to include within the campaign. The film was distributed for free in schools up and down the country.”

case study 2

Barnardo’s: turning affinity into action

With its reputation for hard-hitting campaigns, Sarah Chapper, deputy director of marketing for UK kid’s charity Barnardo’s, talks us through the organisation’s advertising approach

How significant is the role of advertising for Barnardo’s?

It plays a really important role because it raises awareness of who we are and what we stand for. The thing about our brand is that we have a really strong heritage and so everybody’s heard of us, but some people don’t understand what we do. It sounds really obvious but as a charity you need to build up a case of support, so historically the advertising had been about raising awareness. If we can be in people’s minds and hearts it makes the job of our fundraisers much, much easier.

How important is the creative relationship with your agency, BBH London?

Our relationship with BBH is, in its strength, a very unusual one I think. We’ve worked with them for about 14 years now and they really understand us because they have worked with us for so long. We don’t have the biggest media budgets so if we are to be competitive and stand out, then the work is absolutely critical. We don’t want to produce campaigns that blend in with all the other charity ads that are out there. It is genuinely a collaborative process; they’ll share work early with us and we’ll talk about different contexts and areas of work.

With tight budgets, what are the biggest challenges for you?

The charity marketplace has never been as competitive as it is now. The amount of voluntary funds from the public is static and has been for a number of years so we’re competing continually for market share. It’s really about differentiation and showing why our work is so important. Barnardo’s looks after very vulnerable children and the work we do is work that others might shy away from. People say that we’re terrier-like, we don’t give up on any kids – Dr Barnardo said 150 years ago that no child should ever be turned away and we still believe that today, so when it comes to advertising the more creative we can be, then the more we stand out. Plus the work has to be compelling to get around the problem of the small budgets.

Barnardo’s has a reputation for impactful campaigns, is there ever a debate over whether you’re going too far or not far enough?

Ten or 15 years ago, when our awareness levels were really low and we were starting to advertise, it was about creating shocking and impactful work as the main goal was to get Barnardo’s back on the map. It generated lots of PR and that’s how we got around having a relatively small press budget. Then, over time, we found that we were starting to turn our donors against us as they felt we were being too deliberately provocative. We wanted to change our strategy and move towards a more affinity-focused campaign, so it was about deepening the relationship with potential supporters.

More recently we’re finding that as the level of awareness of our work grows, we’re starting to be able to use advertising for interaction. It’s not just about awareness or deepening relationships, the message now is ‘will you support us?’. The strategy is about creating that propensity to donate. It’s about a mind-set. We’re aware that we’re not a mass charity and that not everyone will necessarily support us, but there are many people who share our vision for children. The marketing strategy now is about converting awareness and affinity into action, whether that’s via donations, volunteering, running charity events, going into our shops – however that support can be shown.