Category: Smarter Charities

Do blockbuster charity ads communicate the mission?

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Giles - Blog, Marketing, Smarter Charities

Four new mega charity TV ads have come out in the last few weeks. Save the Children, Barnardo’s, Age UK and Macmillan. It’s a tough time for most charities but these four look well funded.

But do they deliver and communicate the mission? Which is often tough as most charities deliver their mission through policy work. Let’s find out.

“If London was Syria” for Save the Children, with Natasha Kaplinsky, is all about the effects of war with the line ‘just because it isn’t happening here doesn’t mean it isn’t happening”. Coinciding with three years after the Syria Crisis began (yes three years!), this is bang on Save the Children’s mission, about saving children’s lives, helping when disasters strike and giving them the best start. My only beef, the idea of wars in your backyard was done better in a Costwolds village scene in Unwatchable, a story about conflict minerals in Congo.

Next up is Barnardo’s new TV ad about Ellie’s life of being told ‘she’s no good’ and her desperate need to make some things stop, which can all be ‘conquered’ with Barando’s support. ‘Believe in children’ is exactly what this is about and again in the sweet spot for their mission.

‘Life flies’, the beautiful new ad from Age UK, is about being valued. It shows life’s journey from ‘0-100’. I love this ad. I wanted to donate immediately to Age UK. It’s clever, enjoy life’s journey, as it goes in a blink, so you may as well enjoy it all. Age UK aims to improve ‘later life’ for everyone and this TV ad is all about making the most of later life.

‘No one should face cancer alone’ from Macmillan Cancer Support goes from strength to strength, showing the importance of support to those who need it most. And it quietly celebrates those who ‘support’ the most; mums, donors, careers, at one point all in one scene – it doesn’t get more powerful. No one should face cancer alone and Macmillan Cancer Support strives to improve the lives of people affected with cancer. Mission accomplished.

All four ads do deliver the mission. Seeing the extraordinary in the everyday. Agencies love charity work, they mine for an insight, a minutia blown up to dramatise how your money can help.

Marketing Excellence – Green Banana Marketing’s free shortcuts event!

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Giles - Blog, Marketing, Smarter Charities

Your invitation to Green Banana Marketing’s next Shortcuts event

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Shortcuts Series

Marketing Excellence Case Studies

Marketing Excellence Case Studies – Free Shortcuts seminar

Green Banana Marketing’s second free Shortcuts seminar of 2014. Step inside the agency world, learn how to create case studies, build campaigns and communicate with your audience, with examples from Fairtrade, Spark and Bats.

Aimed at those working for charities and wishing for an overview of Marketing and where case studies can add value. Previous delegates said of the seminar; “very useful and inspiring – the fundamentals of marketing”

You and a colleague are invited to our second Free Shortcuts marketing seminar for this year on Friday 19th September 2014 at 4pm for one hour at 229 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T7QG.

You will come away understanding:
• The fundamentals of a great charity campaign
• What value a marketing case study can add to a charity’s approach

Places are limited to 20, so please click here to subscribe and book your free place now.
‘Shortcuts’ seminars are intended to give you the most important information in the one-hour session. Drinks, cakes and a friendly chatty session will follow it.

We look forward to seeing you there!
Kind regards,

Green Banana

Visit our website

BOOK NOW

Date: 19th September 2014Time: 4 – 5 pm

Location:

02 Workshop

229 Tottenham Court Rd

London

Green Banana Marketing shortcut seminar

Cool Idea or Skating on thin Ice? Five lessons for IBC ii

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Giles - Blog, Income growth, Marketing, Smarter Charities

You’ve heard of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which went viral in June but have you heard of Aymotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) disease? ALS is a motor neuron disease that attacks the nerves in the spinal cord and brain.

ALS is the most common motor neurone disease, which often starts to show signs at the age of 60. There are an average of two deaths per 100,000 people each year in the UK alone and survival from onset of the disease is 3-4 years.

A pretty convincing case for support, which the Ice Bucket Challenge, that originated in the US, aimed to raise awareness and money for this disease,
but how efficient has it been?

The craze caught on with 2.4 million videos related to the ‘IBC’ on Facebook this summer, and a further 28 million people joining the conversation (either in likes, comments or posts) between June 1st and September 30th. ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ was in the news on average 78 times per day and trending by the end of August; there were more Google searches for this than for all of the searches for ‘Gaza’, ‘Ferguson’ or ‘Iraq’.

Perhaps it was a good antidote to the Malaysian airline tragedy, Ebola virus outbreak, the continued fight against ISIS, and not to mention the passing of Robin Williams and Joan Rivers! But has the feel good factor of taking part been helping charities? MNDA, the Motor Neurone Disease Association (the charity most strongly associated with ALS in the UK), has raised £7m from ice bucket donations, a sum worthy of a half seconds soaking on a warm summer’s day.

But in the context of other previous charity challenges, did ‘IBC’ actually deliver? The ‘no makeup selfie’ for CRUK raised over £8m in just 6 days and ‘Movember 2013’ raised a whopping £20.4m in just one month. Both of these suggest that the ‘IBC’ should have raised significantly more in four months of intensive activity with an estimated 20 million people taking part.

© Green Banana Marketing

Number of people involved in Ice bucket challenge and Movember per country (‘000)

The craze is already beginning to freeze over!

How many of the IBC videos actually resulted in donations? The Charities Aid Foundation estimated of the 1 in 6 Britons that have taken part so far, only 1 in 10 have actually donated to a charity. This rings true, for the 20 million who took part, if each donated £1, the total raised would be nearer £20 million.

Thoroughly entertained, but the bottom line is that most of the videos didn’t result in giving to a good cause. And there have been environmental challenges about the amount of water used in the IBCs, particularly the one involving 40,000 litres from a dumper truck.

Overall, the IBC could have been more productive and we think:
1. Although substantial amounts were raised for ALS.org and MNDA, it is disproportionate to the number of people taking part

2. Clarity should have been given around the fundraising mechanic, as many people were confused about what to do

3. A simple branding device might well have helped the participants on either side of the challenge! Also, if the IBC had been a more successful fundraising magnet for ALS, a better-branded mechanic would have drawn less income from other charities, what William MacAskill, Vice President of Giving What We Can, calls ‘funding cannibalism’

4. The campaign has raised awareness for ‘ALS’, but not as much for Aymotrophic Lateral Sclerosis disease – next time participants would benefit from a progress report and a brief summary of the actions taken as a result of their involvement

5. From an environmental point of view, the campaign mechanics could have involved Water Aid, who themselves raised considerable funds on the back of the challenge. Water Aid raised £47,000 in one day – which is 50% higher than it has ever received in a single day before). The should have been a good well thought through partnership, involving other charities as well as, perhaps a utility company.

There are more efficient and environmentally friendly ways to fundraise than the Ice Bucket Challenge; it is definitely fun to watch but may be more of a damp squib than the cool enterprise we first thought. A bit more careful thought at the beginning could have quadruple the income raised for Aymotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and made a real difference. Will IBC ii be back next Summer – we certainly hope so.

Poldark’s charity is a funder’s dream

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Giles - Blog, Comms, Ethics, Fairer Companies, Marketing, Partnerships, Smarter Charities, Social

I wonder, if like me, you have been inspired by Ross Poldark, in the BBC1’s 70s remake, which has been watched by nearly 7 million viewers, based on Winston Graham’s Poldark books from the 1940s and 1950s.
Set in the 18th century, the main character, Ross Poldark, a British Army officer, returns to his home in Cornwall from the American Revolutionary War only to find that his fiancée, Elizabeth, having believed him dead, is about to marry his cousin, Francis Poldark. Ross attempts to restore his own fortunes by reopening one of the family’s tin mines. After several years he marries his servant girl, and is gradually reconciled to the loss of Elizabeth’s love.

There is plenty to enjoy – at its heart, a story of determination and doing the right thing. Poldark’s physique has been much debated, but it’s his approach, which we think throws up some great analogies for charities wanting to stay true to their beliefs and be true leaders. And they are;

1. At his core is a powerful belief in philanthropy, which comes through every pore

2. He has a vision – turning his new tin mine into a success- which he relentless pursues

3. He doesn’t let short term set backs take him of course, but knows when to call in extra help

4. He knows how to lead people with his vision – of finding tin

5. He understands what it takes to inspire people with words as well as actions

6. He’s keenly aware of how to inspire funders

7. He knows how to gain their continued support, and when to give updates on the progress that has been made

8. He’s happy to go out on a limb for what he believes in – in work and in love, however out of kilter and out of fashion this might be with his immediate circle

9. He leads by example and is consistent to his word

10. Despite much adoration, he is humble, welcoming and a genuinely consistent all round nice guy.

Can Ross Poldark do no wrong?

Marketing Essentials – Green Banana Marketing’s free shortcuts event!

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Giles - Blog, Marketing, Smarter Charities

Your invitation to Green Banana Marketing’s next Shortcuts event

Shortcuts Series

Marketing Essentials

Marketing Essentials – Green Banana Marketing’s first free Shortcuts seminar of 2014. Aimed at those wishing to brush up on their marketing, an introduction or refresher of the marketing mix to make sure you’re focusing on the right areas. Ideal for marketers, project managers, managers, events organisers and those new to marketing, new to the sector or maybe you have a job that has expanded from PR or sales to include “marketing”.

You and a colleague are invited to our first Free Shortcuts marketing seminar for this year on Friday 16th May 2014 at 4pm for one hour at 229 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T7QG.

A previous delegate said of the seminar; “very useful and inspiring – the basics and fundamentals of marketing”

You will come away understanding:

• The marketing mix, and tools that help marketers communicate successfully, and how to use them in your organisation

• Your target market and how to reach them

• Creating compelling marketing messages and objectives

• Developing a marketing plan for your organisation – which channels to use from social to promotion

• How other campaigns have achieved this from Greenpeace’s Saving the Arctic to Buglife’s campaign

Places are limited to 20, so please click here to subscribe and book your free place now.

‘Shortcuts’ seminars are intended to give you the most important information in the one-hour session. It will be followed by drinks, cakes and a friendly and chatty session.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Kind regards,

Green Banana

Visit our website

BOOK NOW

Date: 16th May 2014Time: 4:00 – 5:00pmLocation: 02 Workshop

229 Tottenham Court Rd

London

Revisit Marketing essentials

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Giles - Blog, Marketing, Partnerships, Smarter Charities, Social

Shortcut seminar by Green Banana Marketing on ‘Marketing essentials’ 16/05/2014

Green Banana Marketing’s top tips for charity marketing

Is it any easier to define what we mean by marketing for charities and NGOs? With squeezed budgets and complicated stakeholder needs, I sometimes wonder. If marketing for a charity is “to achieve organisational objectives and to bring the appropriate number of people from the agreed groups to engage and respond in a way that mutually satisfies both parties”, it’s surprising how few know their own organisational objectives, an obvious starting point for effective marketing. Fortunately, more know their own objectives and how these support the charity vision.

For today’s charities, innovation is important and effective, standout marketing. How to leverage digital touch points and to build long-term corporate partnerships with a solid shared strategic core, are also day-to-day worries.

Charity comms departments change names at a dizzying speed; from Marcomms, Supporter Engagement to Marketing, Fundraising as standalone to a merged super unit around a common digital belief! 65 years on and James “marketing mix” Culliton will be turning in his grave. He described the combination of elements involved in making any marketing decision; more commonly called the 4 ps of marketing, which have stood the test of time, it’s worth revisiting some of our vast history of marketing and how we fit in! Product, Promotion, Place and Price. And later 3 more Ps were added; People, Physical evidence and Process.

Charities deliver a staggering amount for very little resource but sometimes lack focus. Multi-million pound corporate campaigns tend to work to a much tighter bandwidth, such as changing sales by 5% with a specific audience segment.

NGOs tend to know their brands better than their audiences. Segmenting audiences, by identifying the most receptive moments to engage with people and mapping out user journeys would be a critical part to improving supporters and the charities focus.

We’re delighted that four of the ten most effective UK charities cited in the recent ‘Passionate About Collaboration’ report, which identified the UK’s most effective NGOs, are our clients, based on responses from over 100 NGO Chief Executives. Our approach chimes with the report’s main conclusions, which is to be more effective with reach and impact.

We are lucky enough to have worked with some of the very best marketing teams in the charity world from Fairtrade to Buglife – this we believe comes from a love of their organisation and a belief in what they can do.

Send all our leaders on the London Marathon

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Giles - Blog, Comms, Comms, Environment, Ethics, Fairer Companies, Greener Environmental, Income growth, Marketing, Olympics, Partnerships, Policy, Smarter Charities, Smarter Government, Social, Staffing and leadership, Sustainability

What’s not to like about the London Marathon? It’s welcoming – whether you are one of the 750,000 spectators, watching it on TV or more importantly one of the 38,000 people taking part. It’s pure joy, celebration and carnival– preceded by pain and I guess sometimes despair. What makes the London Marathon brand so special is the following:

we all know somebody who was running
the amazing sense achievement, of giving and taking part
the sense of fun and nothing is impossible or is judged to be ridiculous. The most eccentric charity runner was probably Lloyd Scott who took five days to complete the course wearing a deep-sea diving suit. And no doubt ushered in new regulations for the marathon, which state that the race must be completed in one day
the fact that this is one of the biggest fundraisers, during the last 30 years runners have made more than £500m for various charities

We were also all swept up by 2012 London Olympics and the amazing Gamemakers who really made their mark. Now contrast that with the lead up to the general election – the biggest event we were not really invited to be part of – in the weeks leading up to 7th May. We’ve not been involved in a conversation with the general election. The environment, sport and health have been little discussed. The Green party lost out, by playing down discussions about green issues, to demonstrate a broader understanding of other policy areas.

There has been very little discussion about sport, health and well being; tackling obesity and getting people back into sports. I applaud the This Girl Can campaign and what Dove has tried to do by normalising every day body shapes. But all this seems to have been given the two fingers by the most pointless and shallow ad of our time; an ad for a weight loss drink and beach perfect bodies.

Thank goodness for two bloggers Tara Costello and Fiona Longmuir, pictured, who posed next to the ad, rightly saying they are beach ready.

I want an election a bit like the London Marathon, where;

we know somebody who is running and want to support them
we feel involved
our differences are celebrated
the health of our bodies and the planet are central to the thinking

10 tips to maximise growth through your website

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Giles - Blog, Comms, Comms, Comms, Education, Environment, Ethics, Extreme weather, Fairer Companies, Greener Environmental, Greener Marine, Income growth, Marketing, Olympics, Partnerships, Policy, Policy, Protection, Recycling, Smarter Charities, Smarter Government, Social, Staffing and leadership, Sustainability

Many of the social organisations we work with are going through huge changes, using their “ten year strategy” to answer the question “what would a digitally-enabled organisation look like?” and “how will we thrive in an increasingly digital world?”. These are perfect questions to help shape the future and current offering and the following related questions helped us in working through our recent projects with the Fairtrade Foundation and The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).

Mapping the user experience and developing wireframe and related colour schemes for the navigation

1.What’s not working well at the moment? Where are audiences dropping off / not going – why is this?

2.What are your analytics telling you? Do you understand the audience needs and do these change by age / other demographics? Why is that? Do you know how people are using your site?

3.Are you ready for Mobilegeddon? Do start the process of ensuring your site works on different devices from interactive white screen to phones. You probably already know that Google’s search ranking will be affected by how mobile friendly your site it. There is an easy mobile friendly test you can do.

The mobile experience for teachers using Fairtrade resources

4.Is your SEO / social strategy good enough? Read Google’s guide to SEO, again Google will look harshly at copy that is too small and links that go nowhere. Defining your strategy beforehand (starting with the web copy), will help you prioritise what your main services are.

5. Do you have a strong concept / design? People like ideas- a strong concept can really lift your site usage.

6.Do you have the right sign-up points? Getting the balance right is essential; too many and people will click off your site. Having the main touch points clearly labelled will increase conversion to sales, and to your newsletter sign up.

Clear and interesting sign up points help the user

7.Why not ask people what they would like to use the site for in the future? Regular users of your site will often have as good ideas as anyone for how the experience could be made even better, we’ve found tapping this interest and using some of their ideas is crucial.

8.Are you using it as a living / agile website? Agile roll-outs are best. Too often the process is to map the user experience to a wireframe and then build the site over 10-16 weeks, which is fine. But it’s better to keep the site alive and agile, adding new features and functionality, so the site has a beginning but no end. There is no web 2.2.

9.Are you linking your CRM to your website? You increase conversion to your site by as much as 50% from users on your social channels, by a few simple campaigns.

10.Are you making lots of new friends? We’ve found links to your site from other respected organisations work wonders for new site visitors and increased search ranking.

If you need help with your web delivery, these are the first questions we would ask, it’s an easy checklist, which starts with your audience and builds things in an agile but logical way.

Giles Robertson, Founder and Managing Director of Green Banana Marketing Ltd, Marketing Soc. and RSA Fellow, Charity Group chairman, Trustee of Marine Conservation Society, member of 2Degrees board of advisers and the Sustainability Growth Group. Follow him on twitter @gogreenbanana or email at Giles@greenbananamarketing.com

Top ten charity campaigns of 2015

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Giles - Blog, Comms, Comms, Comms, Education, Environment, Ethics, Fairer Companies, Greener Environmental, Greener Marine, Income growth, Marketing, News, Partnerships, Policy, Protection, Smarter Charities, Smarter Government, Social, Sustainability

Well done to all those charities who have run bold campaigns in 2015. Not an easy year for the sector with many mergers still on the table, negative stories about about how charities operate in getting their vital funds, the debacle of the Kids Company closing and the Edelman Trust barometer showing trust in charities down 17%.

My top 10 charity campaigns this year are:

Greenpeace Awesome Again

It was good to see Greenpeace’s action in 2014 and mobilising millions to stop the Lego Shell partnership in 2015. Without Greenpeace, life would be much less interesting (and less organisations would be kept in check).

Je Suis Charlie

Not a charity but certainly a cause, I’m sure most would agree the Je Suis Charlie events were a critical response to the threat against the freedom of speech, inspired by the terrible attacks in France on 7^th January 2015.

This Girl Can

I loved This Girl Can campaign developed by Sport England as a celebration of active women doing their thing no matter how well they do it or how they look.

Big Issue Baristas

A very innovative and entrepreneurial way to diversify the work homeless people can do, by training them to make and sell cappuccinos – with eight carts in London, I wish it all the best.

Amnesty’s Virtual Reality ‘Aleppo’ Street

It’s tough bringing home your message and this campaign does just that with specially created headsets. It aims to transport people to a Syrian street to show the destructive effects of barrel bombs.

St John’s Ambulance ‘Chokeables’

A brilliant idea, using regular ‘chokables’ as the main characters, with voice-overs from Johnny Vegas and David Mitchell, adding weight.

The Lord’s Prayer ad (Just Pray)

The Church of England planned to run the spot before showings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, opening on 18 December. As an aside, The Odeon, Cineworld and Vue refused to show The Lord’s Prayer ad . The spot launched the Church of England’s justpray.uk website, which encourages prayer and offers tutorials.

I Saw Your Willy / Share Aware

NSPCC’s great campaign encourages children to think about what they share online; with this campaign they have developed a partnership with 02.

Life-changing Learning

The Open University has captured the strength of mind, effort and reward that comes from studying a part-time degree – a nice brand builder.

Unicef Snapchat of Nigeria

Unicef recruited Snapchat artists to redraw the pictures made by some of the 800,000 children forced to flee their homes in Nigeria, as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the horrific impact of the Boko Haram crisis on Nigerian children.

These charity campaigns are all brave and ambitious – but more importantly speak to us in a straightforward language, and in my view, increase the perceived value of the charities’ role on the issues. I believe they have every chance of driving new supporters and partnerships.

Wishing you all a great Christmas and New Year.

Giles Robertson, Director of Green Banana Marketing Ltd and independent Marketing Consultant, Marketing Society Fellow, Board Member, Marine Conservation Society

Follow him on twitter @gogreenbanana and Linkedin or email at Giles@greenbananamarketing.com

Shortcuts Stand out from the crowd – need to know brand and marketing essentials

Posted on August 22, 2015 by Giles - Blog, Comms, Comms, Comms, Education, Environment, Ethics, Extreme weather, Fairer Companies, Greener Environmental, Greener Marine, Income growth, Marketing, News, Olympics, Partnerships, Policy, Policy, Protection, Recycling, Smarter Charities, Smarter Government, Social, Staffing and leadership, Sustainability

Your invitation to Green Banana Marketing’s next Shortcuts event

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Shortcuts Series

Standout from the crowd – need to know brand and marketing essentials

Free Shortcuts seminar – Tuesday 10th September 2015 9 – 10am

Green Banana Marketing invite you to their free Charity Shortcuts seminar on Tuesday 10 September 2015 at 9am.

Charities need good marketing more than ever – with great pressures to gain new supporters (and more charities to standout from), building your appeal and what you stand for is essential.

Having a strong brand and marketing focus has never mattered more.

This innovative hours workshop will change the way you think about marketing and leave you bursting with ideas on how to build your brand personality, standout from the crowd and attract new supporters to your organisation.

Previous delegates said of the seminar; “very useful and inspiring – the fundamentals of marketing”

We would very much like to see you and a colleague at this Free Shortcuts seminar on Tuesday 10th September 2015 at 9am for one hour at the O2 Workshop, 229 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T7QG.

Places are limited to 20, so please do click here now to subscribe and book your free place.

‘Shortcuts’ seminars are intended to give you the most important information in the one-hour session. Drinks, cakes and a friendly networking session will follow the seminar.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Kind regards,

Visit our website

BOOK NOW

Date: 10th September 2015Time:

9 – 10 am

Location:

02 Workshop

229 Tottenham Court Rd

London

Green Banana Marketing shortcut seminar

Five questions to ask of your blockbuster charity film

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Giles - Blog, Comms, Marketing, News, Uncategorized

It’s time to make that all defining film about your charity (or yourself?). The problem is, where do you start? Your content list runs to ten minutes and your main spokesperson sounds like Kevin Spacey at the end of his tether in American Beauty, which is not going to win you new support.

We’ve just made a great promo film about Green Banana Marketing with sister company, Five on a Bike. Four edits later and we were very happy with the results. That’s not bad for a 7-year-old company with dozens of client projects – we’ve seen some films go into double digit edits. Here are my six questions for you to consider, which helped keep me on track and to fewer edits:

Do you have an idea of what you want to say?

It’s great to consider what your key messages are right up front. The really hard job is being tough on what you’d like to show to which audience. Try and list the two or three take-outs you’d like to have from the film. For us, it was showing the value we could bring to people’s work through the story of our projects.Image from edit suite of Green Banana Marketing film

Are you are clear who it is for?

Showing what you do to a group of school kids is very different to presenting to the senior board at Santander. There may be similarities, but I imagine it’s two difference audiences with different needs. Businesses like to see your flair, the impacts of your work and what a likely partnership will deliver. And school kids are no different; they want to be inspired and see how things have changed because of your work. Sometimes explaining the basics of what you do, can be a great start. I remember in one presentation with my Marine Conservation Society trustee hat on, one speaker outlined all that they did related to marine biology, and at the end of the session, the first question was ‘what does a marine biologist do?” Oh dear. For us at Green Banana Marketing, we hoped to speak directly to Marketing Directors of development, fair trade, health, conservation and human rights charities.

What are you hoping as a result of the film?

Is your film a shortcut way of introducing what you do? Or is it an “ask” to show what more could be done with some extra resource? Two very different scenarios –again if this is done right, it can pay dividends. I know one corporate partner film, which allegedly paid for itself within the first six months for a development charity.

How is your brand featured?

Introducing the feel of your organisation throughout is a real art, whether it’s your logo on runners vests doing the Marathon, or campaigning pledges reaching their target, it helps to weave your brand into the story. And of course, do start and end your film with your brand and your mission and finish with a ‘view’ of your vision and your ask for the future.See how the storyboard for Salix / Department for Education compares to final film

Will you do an overview of all your work or slice through one area?

Images do speak a thousand words, but sometimes you forget, if images are not explained with a simple title e.g. “Fracking protest outside Chequers”, they can be abstract and rather off putting. Start by writing down all the content you think should be in the film, it will end up being enough content for The Godfather part 1 and 2. But never mind, it’s a start. It’s easier to explain a problem through a story; how your organisation was the hero who overcame the villain, the approach it took and the style of how it works. Telling your story through one person’s perspective always helps. You forget how complex your organisation is and people can really only take in a handful of messages at a time. Mario’s personal battle with cancer and the support he got from Macmillan Cancer Support hits me hard in this film and I get exactly what he went through, what the charity did for him – even within this small focus of their work. Do take the leap and make a film about your charity work – answer the hard questions first and you’ll save time as well as money on the editing floor. And of course, we could help make it very good for you.

Increase support and income for your charity

Posted on December 4, 2013 by Giles - Blog, Income growth, Smarter Charities

Next Shortcuts series event!

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Giles - Blog, Marketing, Smarter Charities

Building your Brand on and offline our next shortcut seminar

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Giles - Blog, Marketing, Smarter Charities

If I say Apple, Colgate, CNN, Coca-Cola, Canon, Volkswagen, people are immediately aware of what it is, where it is from and their degree of “attachment” to the brand or product. But the awareness around these brands has been nurtured, created, developed, and maintained by the companies’ brand strategists. Often with billions of pounds. Though we might not have the budgets in the charity sector, some of the learnings are useful and applied consistently, can be very effective.

Last century, the aim was to build and to develop a strong brand with the public through advertising. Nowadays, with the Internet and ever-tough competition all over the place, organisations need to build their brand’s reputation on and offline, and be as creative as ever to generate maximum interaction.

How do you develop an on and offline strategy that works? Should we talk about the word ‘brand’ for charities, which has only just stopped being a ‘dirty word’? How do we build strong engagement around your brand?

Here are a few examples of brands that have successfully managed both their on and offline strategy over the last few years. No doubt there will be a few surprises with our selection.

The story of Adnams, a small beer producer that is building its brand around communities:

Established in 1872, Adnams, as a “basic” retailer and pub owner, started to build life around its brands by relating its products to its mission and vision.

Adnams created a community around each of its brand. In 1990, it first built the Adnams’ charity to help people living within 25 miles from Southworld. Then it created a history around each branded beer.

And finally, they are helping protect the environment and sealife by supporting the Marine Conservation Society with the launch of the Fat Sprat beer and by using “green” distillery production. For example, they work with local farmers and producers; they use aneoribic digestion units, green roofs and bore holes to chill their brewery and the first carbon neutral bottled beer was made from hops grown locally at East Green.

The company maintains interest with its audience of the histories and builds real engagement and experience through brewery visits, events for the community and regular tweets. In 20 years they have built a strong offline reputation. Recently, they have started to develop this online reputation by refreshing their retail website, finely tuned to its audience needs, inviting them to participate in events, to comment, to interact on social channels and to built the story of their brand together.

Adnams expanded their activity, opening their Adnams Cellar & Kitchen shops to attract a new segment of women. “We were keen to appeal to the 50 per cent of the population we weren’t talking to – females.” says Andy Wood, Adnams chief executive and, in 2012, they won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development.

To what end – increased sales, visits, awareness? We’ll look at this when we meet.

Buglife building its brand to be the “one-stop-shop” for bugs

Created in the 90’s when there was no one organisation devoted to protecting invertebrates, Buglife became the first to do so in Europe.

Over the past 20 years, 1,000 active members have joined Buglife. In 2012, a strategy and business review, helped by the Tubney Foundation funding, identified opportunities to increase their membership to 10,000 in the next five years by growing awareness through the brand and establishing new partnerships.

Buglife worked on all aspects (a more contemporary logo , website, social channels, employee engagement etc.) of their brand “personality”, to create a stronger and more powerful “environmental charity”. Green Banana Marketing has been assisting Buglife in defining their priorities, brand image, audiences and digital assets including ‘developing a new’ website.

For their various audiences, offline, Buglife organise different events (including be-lines), children packs for schools to awareness of invertebrate causes through their campaigns like Neonics. Online GBM have worked hard to build an entirely new website, keeping their audience up-to-date and involved. The aim being to increase participation with main groups (media, public, policy makers and partners) and to help them understand and interact with the main issues, and supporting the ambition of being the “one stop shop” for Bugs.

These recent change gave Buglife the opportunity to review its mission and image, and to create even more real interaction with its audiences.

The online part of this project will be launched towards the end of July – so we will be able to give a progress report at our next shortcut on 26^th of July.

For more information, or to book your place – View event invite now!

Five ways to increase your influence with social media

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Giles - Blog, Smarter Charities, Social

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends”

Jeff Bezos, CEO at Amazon

Social media began almost a decade ago but it’s become a far more prominent and important part of most people’s lives than we could have predicted. It has become a more advanced version of the classic word-of-mouth – and companies try to use it as such.

Here are five tips to help increase your influence through social media platforms.

1. Know your online presence

Nowadays, almost all groups, charities, companies and individuals are running a social platform (or they should be). However, to make the most of your online presence, you need to be able to answer three fundamental questions:

What is my online presence? For instance, we’ve had clients not knowing about multiple Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook feeds, working inconsistently with different messages
Which social platforms best fit my supporter /audience base? For instance, Vine, the six second video sharing site, lends itself very well to WWF’s endangered species programme, but is perhaps less effective for the Samaritans’ support work
How are we measuring our influence online? Are we plotting and measuring where people go on our site, who is re-tweeting and what number of comments are we getting on our posts? (and, more importantly, how many people has this been fed on to)? Most platforms offer tools to measure how many times your pages or posts have been seen, the number of clicks per minute you’ve received, what content is the most appreciated (liked) by viewers, and so on.

2. Understand the best way to influence key audiences

Once you have found what is the best platform to reach your target audience, you need to find the best way to influence them through this channel. Should we produce posts, videos, photos and engage our target audience with games, petitions, actions, competitions etc? Keep them informed of how many actions and time spent equates to a certain level of influence. Amnesty do this really well, explaining that in 5 minutes you could sign a petition, with half a day’s support, you could attend a rally.

3. Produce shareable content – and make it easy to do so!

Most social platforms allow for the sharing of content so it is easy to engage with campaign videos, infographics, viral, posters, etc. in this most popular way. As stand out is tough on social platforms, all your creative talents should be focused on producing relevant photos to promote your posts and increase sharing opportunities. Make sure your content is not too heavy and long, and that people can quickly understand and share with their comments (and ownership). Heck, why not write a shareable chunk of text to go with posts, 140 word re-tweet friendly.

4. Consistent and flowing campaigns – don’t start and stop.

When you start being present on a social, make sure you keep your audience engaged by regularly posting information (at least twice a week). Show off past projects and successes, the difference you’ve made so far, your ‘storyboard’ or your personality – by interacting in this way, you will build engaged audiences. Keep you audience up to date. But don’t bore them.

5. Finally, let others do the heavy lifting!

Relevant partners will happily use your content, so build your campaign and change strategy with this in mind. You may well be the trusted partner in this programme and you can make use of networks, which may well quickly get to 1.5million people – if you are working with O2 Priority Moments, for instance. This is well worth doing if it can build support and engagement in a meaningful and relevant way.

Some of the best charities and environment social campaign from the last year include:

Campaign “Touch Yourself” for Breast Cancer Awareness

The campaign launched in October 2012 by F Cancer and Women’s Health and Men’s Health magazines, aimed to promote early cancer detection through self-checks for breast lumps. A Facebook app was created to pledge to perform a self-check and share a variety of 14 pre-written postcards with friends, encouraging them to do the same.

This is the king of campaigns, a perfect example of how to use of social channels. Facebook was the main channel, with sharable content engaging the target audience and ways to encourage friends to do the same.

Campaign Twestival for Charity: Water

“On 12 February 2009, 200+ international cities hosted a Twestival (Twitter + festival) to bring Twitter communities together to raise money for Charity: Water”. One week later the charity water staff flew to Ethiopia to drill the first well.

They immediately posted videos on Twitter related to their work, with some “re-tweetable“ information about water conditions, and published funds raised for each city. The Twitter activity allowed communities to engage, raise £174,899 funds for water projects, to build 55 wells, to serve water to over 17,000 people, and also to allow followers to see the day to day activity.

Next Shortcuts series event!

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Giles - Blog, Smarter Charities, Social

Charity influence with social media and our next Shortcuts event

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Giles - Blog, Smarter Charities, Social

Social media is perfect for the needs of charities and not-for-profit organisations. Facebook and Twitter have over 1.4 billion members – it’s a cheap, targeted, and an engaging way to reach and influence our audiences instantly.

We’re obsessed by online – apparently the UK spends more than any other country online (so we heard at Media Trust’s GoMobile Conference last week). And mobile is the next big thing. But how do you harness this to influence people and generate real change? We’ve been looking at how the best charity campaigns do just this.

80% of charities are actively using social media as part of their campaigns. There has also been a doubling of supporters on key UK charities social media channels in the past year alone.

We have listed some of the best uses of social media in the charity / environmental sector:

Fairtrade – battle for the farmers

More than 500 million of the world’s farmers produce 70 per cent of the world’s food but receive an average of only 3 per cent of the retail prices charged by supermarkets. Fairtrade’s campaign to get a better deal for the smallholder farmers highlighted the issue at this year’s G8 meeting.

Why it’s on the list
The campaign signed-up just under 10,000 people as a result of a brilliant, shareable campaign video and protest idea backed by some solid celebrity faces (Jonathan Ross included). The petition will be sent to David Cameron on World Fair Trade Day in May before the G8 meeting the following month.

Invisible Children – KONY campaign
The KONY 2012 campaign started as an experiment. Could an online video make an obscure war criminal famous? And if he were famous, would the world work together to stop him? Or would it let him remain at large?

Why it’s on the list
The fastest growing viral video of all time, with 100 million YouTube views in 6 days, 3.7 million people pledging their support raising over $12 million and becoming the “most liked” non-profit on Facebook with 3.1 million likes. KONY was the #9 most searched person on Google this year.

Avaaz.org – online petition platform

Launched in January 2007, Avaaz.org is a global online campaigning organisation that brings people-powered politics to international decision-making.

Why it’s on the list
Avaaz has grown to more than 10 million members worldwide.

It provides an online, low-cost process in which people all over the world can sign-up to try and make a difference – right injustices, save people’s lives, campaign for fairness – anything.

Breast Cancer Awareness UK – I like it on

Mysterious updates such as, ‘I Like It On’ followed by ‘the floor’, ‘the bed’, etc., started appearing on females’ Facebook social profiles. Women were actually talking about where they like to leave their handbags and this created curiosity and interest to find out about Breast Cancer Awareness UK.

Why it’s on the list
Clever, inexpensive way to create a buzz across Facebook and Twitter by leaving the work up to the audience themselves!

Movember – supporters of Prostate Cancer UK

Movember – the famous yearly campaign started back in 2003 from humble beginnings in Melbourne, Australia. Since then it has skyrocketed and throughout the month of November – you would struggle not to see any supporters rocking the facial hair.

Why it’s on the list
Last year, through Movember, Prostate Cancer UK (the main UK beneficiary of the campaign) managed to raise an amazing £26 Million.

Social media is a way for brands to interact with many people in a targeted away – often with instant results. As these examples have show, if the content is brilliant and intriguing, you have a good chance of people sharing it. A focused campaign, with brave responsive creative, will stand any charity in good stead.

We will be discussing 3 of these case studies in our next event as our successful Shortcuts seminar series continues on 3 May.

For more information, or to book your place – View event invite now!

Best 6 charity marketing campaigns from 2012 and announcing GBM’s new Shortcut series

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Giles - Blog, Marketing, Smarter Charities

As the first chilly month of 2013 draws to a close, we wanted to present our list of what we consider to be the best standout marketing from charities in 2012. We have selected six campaigns, which we think are bold and different in what has been a challenging year. Brave souls out there are doing the best for their charity brands and we applaud you all.

1. Save The Arctic
Save the Arctic, headed by Greenpeace, is a campaign to save the Arctic from industrial fishing and offshore drilling for oil. The campaign film, Vicious Circle is narrated by John Hurt and has driven an impressive 2.4 million people to sign the petition, to have the Arctic region declared a sanctuary by the United Nations.

2. Plan UK recognition
Plan UK’s Because I am a Girl campaign which highlights the plight of the world’s poorest girls, used an interactive ad on a bus stop in Oxford Street. The advert used facial recognition so men and boys were denied the choice to view the full content, to highlight the fact that women and girls across the world are denied choices and opportunities on a daily basis.

3. St John Ambulance Helpless
A TV ad which had minimal media spend went viral, showing a young man surviving cancer, only to choke on some food whilst eating at a mate’s BBQ. Highlighting that up to 140,000 people die each year from choking – that’s as many as die from cancer. As a direct result of the ad, thirty thousand downloaded the free First Aid app.

4. Compassion in World Farming Front Page
A large proportion of French farmers were expected not to meet the sow stall ban deadline, meaning thousands of sows would continue suffering illegally in sow stalls. CIWF tailored the ‘front page’ of a newspaper for supporters to complete and send to the French Ambassador.

5. Charity: water
Charity: water started three years ago with one man in the States giving up his birthday, spending it instead building wells in Africa. Since then the charity has grown using clever and arresting images, word of mouth, advertising, interesting events and exhibitions and social media. Their fundraising efforts involving celebrities such as Will Smith have been second to none.

6. Oxfam Africa
I love the fact that these print ads hit the press at the same time as Sir David Attenborough’s landmark series Africa. A positive repositioning of how we see Africa as a country of bounty and great natural riches.

These are just some of things that inspired us from last year. We will be using a selection of these case studies in our first ‘Shortcuts’ seminar series on Friday 1^st March 2013. ‘Shorcuts’ is our free seminar series aimed at inspiring marketing managers to deliver even greater marketing in 2013.

Should corporates put more money into charities?

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Giles - Blog, Partnerships, Smarter Charities, Uncategorized

I chaired a debate last night as part of the Marketing Society’s not for profit group. Leading the opposition was Chris Macleod, Head of Group Marketing at Transport for London, London’s largest advertiser. Seconded by expert Richard Harrison, Director of Research at The Charities Aid Foundation, working to create greater value for charities and transforming the way donations are made. And finally Neil Boorman writer, journalist and consultant, who famously lived without brands for a year.

Supporting the motion was Dax Lovegrove, Head of Business and Industry at WWF responsible for developing corporate relationships with the likes of M&S, challenging unsustainable practices. With seconder Maya Prabhu, Senior Philanthropy Adviser from Coutts & Co, where she advises and creates strategies for family foundations and also ensure issues and causes are understand. And finally, on the team Paul Farthing, High Value Relationships Director at Cancer Research UK, one of the UK’s biggest charities with over £420m income raised last year.

The debate was won by the team supporting the motion stating that the big NGOs had the expertise to address the big global challenges like CO2 emissions, AIDS and water scarcity. More cash would enable solutions to be found, developing new systems working with corporates to potentially ‘future proof’ our planet’s resources. Of the £44billion income received by UK charities only a 20th comes from corporates, is that too much to expect? The opposing team said that corporations weren’t set up to give money in this and they too called for a new model which moved away from the old fashioned ‘alms house’ giving to new ways to embed within business with better accountability at its heart. Also only the cuddly popular charities would survive – what about the less appealing causes? And shouldn’t corporate tax been used to address some of these issues?