queer ideas

What's wrong with charity advertising?

Howard Gossage is my favourite Mad Man. If I have an advertising hero, it's probably him.

Howard didn't particularly enjoy coming up with ways to sell more cars and airline tickets, he was just rather good at it. What interested him most was making the world a better place.

So when David Brower of the Sierra Club asked him to help prevent the Grand Canyon being flooded through the building of the Glen Canyon dam, you'd have thought Howard's response would be an automatic yes.

But it wasn't.

David asked Howard's agency, Wiener and Gossage, to lay out an open letter he had written to US Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall. It was his last ditch attempt to try to stop the construction going ahead.

Howard read the letter and concluded that it was over elaborate.

To use his own phrase, he thought David was "putting raisins in the matzos" by going into too much technical detail.

In his opinion, this was the same mistake that far too many charities and cause-related advertising made. The ad talked at its audience and in doing so alienated the people who were most likely to help.

As Gossage explained...

" When they [The Sierra Club] came to us for counsel I happened to mention this to them and said, 'What you've got to do is give people recourse. You've got to give them something they can do so they don't feel guilty and, therefore hate you for making them feel guilty'."

Brower wasn't persuaded, so a test was agreed. One million editions of the New York Times carried his open letter ad and one million carried Gossage's ad.

I haven't got the final results, but Gossage's ad (below) outperformed Bower's ad "enormously" (you can find a readable version of the ad here).

As you'll see from the number of coupons, Gossage's aim was to drive response. Each carried a message that could be sent to the US President, the Secretary of the Interior, the Head of the Interior Committee of the House of Representatives, the reader's Congressman and the reader's two Senators.

As copywriter Jerry Mander admitted, it was the coupons that made the difference...

"Gossage did the important, brilliant thing with those multiple coupons. That had never been done before. They were very, very important because in those days people used coupons; they were their internet."

Brower's original target, Secretary Udall, sums up the impact of the campaign rather neatly...

"That was really a stroke of genius. Of course he knew how to put the heat on you. If you were in my position you had to react."

As a result, support for the Sierra Club doubled from 39,000 to 78,000 and the bill that would authorise the construction of the dam was defeated.

It was the interactive nature of Howard's approach that worked. Rather than lecture, he wanted readers to participate in the ad. This created a connection that meant the brand and message were much more likely to be remembered.

It was an approach that made him different.

He believed that too many agencies suffered from a lack of both creativity and information. Instead they relied on repetition of the same message in the hope that it would finally break through to consumers.

It sounds like much of the charity advertising that we see today – campaigns are praised because the ads look alike and say the same thing.

But when you think about it, this approach is akin to admitting defeat.

We've decided that the only way someone is going to take in our message is if it is constantly paraded in front of their eyes (or ears). That might be acceptable if we're selling something as ordinary as baked beans, but when we are fighting global poverty, tackling climate change or even searching for a cure for cancer is it the best that we can do?

Gossage summed up the problem quite neatly when he said....

"The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it's an ad."

And that's the point. We need to focus on what interests our donors – not on telling them what we want them to think.

That was exactly what Gossage did with his ad. He gave everyone the chance to protect something that they valued. As a result, the Grand Canyon is still an incredible place for us all to enjoy.

It's a rather amazing story, but it doesn't end there.

You might have thought that after this success, the trustees of the SIerra Club would have been incredibly happy.

You'd be wrong.

They weren't sure that they actually wanted all the publicity and controvercy stirred up by Gossage's campaign.

David Brower disagreed with them. The result was his resignation.

Brower's next job was based in Gossage's office where he set up a new environmental pressure group. After a little debate, a name was agreed - Friends of The Earth.

Hat tip to @HayesThompson for recommending Changing The World Is The Only Fit Work For A Grown Man

The battle of the sans-serif versus the serif font

If your communications director won't allow the use of a serif font in an appeal letter because the brand guidelines demand you use sans-serif Frutiger, here's a piece of research that might help you win them round.

Daniel Oppenheimer and two colleagues, Connor Diemand-Yauman and Erikka Vaughan, asked a group of college students between the ages of 18 and 40 to learn about two species of extra-terrestrials – the pangerish and the norgletti.

The pangerish profile was printed in a grey 12-point Bodoni font, whereas the norgletti profile was in a pure-black, 16-point Arial.

After 15 minutes of distraction, the students were tested. They recalled 87% of the pangerish facts versus 73% of the norgletti facts.

The researchers repeated the experiment with a study based at a high school in Ohio. For a complete term, 222 students were provided with learning materials in a selection of different fonts and the results were the same. The students reading Bodoni style fonts did better than those who were given the same information in Arial style fonts.

I say style, because the researchers used a selection of fonts in their experiments. They discovered that even the more complicated serif fonts such as Monotype Corsiva were better than Arial when it came to recall (but then again, so was Comic Sans).

They concluded that people remember more when they are reading smaller, less legible type because it causes them to slow down and read more carefully.

When questioned in the Harvard Business Review, David Oppenheimer went as far as to suggest that recall could be improved by regularly changing fonts in a publication (e.g. in every chapter of a book or every story in a newsletter).

But before you decide to print your next appeal in six-point Desdemona, he also pointed out that there was a cut-off point where the use of difficult to read type would cause the effect to be reversed, particularly with uninterested or unmotivated readers.

Some charities don't seem that bothered about the choice of fonts in fundraising materials, leaving the decision on what they use down to the designer who created the brand guidelines - whether they understand the needs of donors or not.

That might well be a mistake, particularly when you take into account that a different font might cause your reader to remember far more about your charity.

Do you really want to be a cliché?

Jeff Brooks has recently written about the impact of re-branding on fundraising and included some hard facts based on his first-hand observations.

He covered the four areas that are usually included in any new comms director's re-brand strategy and shared the following:

• Changing the logo generally has no financial impact.
• Changing the graphic standards (we'd call this changing the visual identity) has a small negative impact.
• Changing the organisation's name leads to a 25% to 50% loss of revenue.
• Changing the cause identification leads to a 20% to 30% loss of revenue.

As you can see, Branding is a risky business, so as soon as someone mentions that a re-brand might be on the agenda, I always recommend they have a quick flick through Don't Mess with the Logo (and yes, there is a clue in the title). It helps cut through all the nonsense and jargon that makes the subject seem so mysterious and will help you identify whether you are working with someone who knows what they are doing or someone who might leave you with a shiny new brand book but also a hole in your balance sheet.

And even if you haven't got time to read the book, here's a game that you can play when your new logo is finally revealed that serves the same purpose. It's called spot the cliché and is based on the the top ten most overused visual ideas in branding as identified by the authors, Jon Edge and Andy Milligan. It comes with the following advice:

"Make sure the designers you use are not just throwing one of these at you."

1. The aperture or gateway – basically an excuse to stick stuff in the 'O' or any part of your name.

2. The simple geometric shape.

3. The 'person shaped-figure'. This is usually sold with the explanation that 'people engage more with people than type' (which means your name is sh*t and so let's make it into a friendly face or little man – a bit like seeing dragons in cloud formations).

4. Lower case.

5. The colon or asterisk.

6. The globe.

7. The non-logo – an excuse to use a new typeface bought for another client that didn't use it.

8. The unique colour route (almost always purple).

9. The ripped-off logo not used any more from Los Logo book or from 10 years ago.

10. Using/emphasising a misspelling, use of a z or an x – or flipping a letter backwards or upside down.

They also include a few sketches to help you spot some of the more obvious examples.

Jeff asked readers with contradictory experience to share their stories. So far his comment stream is blank. Maybe our experience in the UK is different, so if you have increased your revenue directly beacuse of a re-brand it would great to hear about it.

If Santa was a brand

Santa Claus has been around for a fair few years now and there can't be many of us who don't understand what he's all about.

But what would happen if Santa turned up at an advertising agency looking for some advice on how he could make sure children got their Christmas list to him on time?

He might well find himself subject to a brand makeover in order to ensure his 'key message was better understood by his target market'.

And you can see what the subsequent brand book might look like by clicking here.

It's a very funny end of year read and not a million miles away from what I've seen happen to some charities who have taken the decision to re-brand.

With thanks to @rydesign for another great heads up and the people from Quietroom for the book itself.

You cannot not communicate

"You cannot not communicate. Every behaviour is a kind of communication. Because communication does not have a counterpart (there is no anti-behaviour), it is not possible not to communicate."

Paul Watzalwick's First Axiom of Communications.

Everything you do to a donor communicates something:

• If you ask but never give.
• If you only talk about what your charity has done and not what the donor's gift has achieved.
• if you tell but never listen.
• If you send donors what you choose rather than what they want.
• If you make donors follow your rules rather than adapting to their preferences.
• If you are offline when they are online.
• If you are boring.
• If you use jargon.
• If you aren't relevant.
• If you don't do anything at all.

Every action (or non-action) tells the donor something about how you view and value them.

Think carefully next time you choose to do something, even if you decide to do nothing.

Thanks to @rydesign for the link to 52 weeks of UX.

What's the point of branding?

So you've got a brand. You've brainstormed with stakeholders, you've paid many thousands of pounds for a sparkling new logo, a corporate identity and a list of adjectives that are going to help you change the world.

And what's the result?

Has it increased response rates to your mailing packs? Has it helped reduce attrition? Has it increased donor loyalty?

If it hasn't, maybe something is going wrong.

In the commercial world, a brand adds value to a product or service. In short, it increases income.

For charities, things aren't so clear cut. I've seen 'brand expenditure' justified in terms of increasing awareness or extending knowledge of organisational goals.

All well and good. But if that doesn't translate to more supporters giving and doing more, I'm not sure that a new brand can be classified as a success.

That's why I was rather concerned to see the some of the findings from the 2010 Charity Brand Index survey (you can see my thoughts on the 2009 survey here).

A total of 3,203 adults took part in the survey, answering questions regarding recognition, individual giving, publicity work, trust and support.

When the answers had been cross-tabulated and added up, each charity was left with a score and this year, Cancer Research UK came out on top, followed by BBC Children in Need, RSPCA, Macmillan Cancer Support and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. SSAFA Forces Help saw the biggest rise and NDCS had the biggest fall.

You can see the full index here.

But what's most interesting are the findings about general attitudes to charities. And for me, one result stands out above all the rest – they found that less than 30% of people thought that charities were using money well, down from 32.5% in 2009.

It's left me scratching my head. Donors are continuing to lose touch with the charities they support. Trust might be up, but what about engagement? it seems to be in decline.

We know that one of the most powerful ways to engage a donor is to show them how you have used a gift. It's something donors welcome. When you ask them what they want from a charity, it's pretty much top of the list.

And if we are trying to add value to a charity brand that will translate into more funds, surely this research is showing us that we are doing something wrong. Any study of attrition rates would tend to confirm this view.

Donors have ultimate power. If they don't like the way they are treated after giving once, it is highly likley that their next gift will go elsewhere.

Perhaps they might think that by ignoring their role, we are being a little ungrateful and maybe even a little arrogant. It's happened to organisations like GAP, Coca Cola and Tropicana. There's no reason why it couldn't happen to us to.

So rather than producing advertising that says how great our charity is, perhaps we could learn from what fundraisers were doing before many of us were actually born and produce ads like this from January 1964 that thank donors for their role in raising £1,000,000.

It shows donors just how important they are - in no uncertain terms...

"So people live who would have died. And children have a chance... because you sent a cheque".

If I'd given to the appeal, that ad would have certainly made me feel good. Maybe I'd have given again. And perhaps that's what charity branding should actually be about.

Does your tagline have any clout?

Whatever you call it, your tagline, slogan or strapline can make a significant contribution to your communication strategy.

It can help a donor identify both what you do and what benefits they'll gain from supporting you.

If you think your charity has a great tagline, why not enter it for the 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Taglines Awards.

You can enter your charity's programme, fundraising and special event taglines in addition to your organisational tagline.

The closing date is July 28. It will only take you three minutes and you can submit your entry by clicking here.

Even if you don't win, all entrants will receive a full copy of the 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Report in late 2010. It's a detailed guide to creating a great charity tagline.

Can't be bad for three minutes work. Best of luck.

Why I love branding

There was a cracking post from Jeff Brooks on Future Fundraising Now last week. It tells the story of how two senior marketing people at General Motors came up with the almost unbelievable idea (now reversed) of banning the word Chevy when talking about Chevrolet cars.

He included part of the memo that announced the plan...

"When you look at the most recognized brands throughout the world, such as Coke or Apple for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding.... The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer. This is a big opportunity for us moving forward.... One way to achieve this is with the use of Chevrolet vs. Chevy. We'd ask that whether you're talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward.

"We have a proud heritage behind us and a fantastic future ahead of us ... speaking to the success of this brand in one consistent manner will ensure Chevrolet becomes even more prominent and recognizable than it already is."

Forgetting for a minute that Coke is an abbreviation of Coca-Cola and that most people who use Apple computers simply describe them as Macs, it's a perfect example of a couple of commercial branding gurus forcing their (mistaken) opinions on a company, its heritage and the people who actually spend their hard earned cash buying and running the cars.

But how does this matter to charities? Jeff sums it up very well...

"In just one way: We are suckers for branding and marketing gurus from the commercial world. I'll bet virtually any nonprofit who could afford them would hire either of the Chevy geniuses in a heartbeat ...

"And then they would proceed to put their brains to work doing to their nonprofit employer what they tried to do to Chevy (I mean Chevrolet).

"Because that's what they do.

"They do it in their own world. They'll do it even worse in ours, as they never quite seem to grasp that we aren't selling junk, but motivating people to give."

As you might imagine, I've more than a little sympathy for Jeff's view. I've struggled with communications people and above the line agencies telling me what I have to say to donors and how I have to say it.

And I think that the key problem that lies at the heart of the commercialisation of charity branding is the attitude that people from the for-profit sector bring with them.

The brands that they create for the products and services they sell normally have a guarantee at their core. It says we are great because you can depend on our product to wash your clothes whiter, make you better looking, appear cooler, give you more energy, make you thinner or whatever the consumer hands over their money for.

And that doesn't transfer to charities. A charity actually has to say something completely different.

They have to say we depend on you.

That's why I think the word branding is so dangerous for charities. It completely misses the point. A charity shouldn't be looking to build a case for support on why it is so great. It should concentrate on Wally Olins' preferred definition of branding – seduction. As he explains in On Brand...

"We should remain quite clear that what marketing, branding and all the rest of it is about is persuading, seducing and attempting to manipulate people into buying products and services."

And how does he see this as relating to charities?

"..having 87 charities with 87 names, 87 offices, 87 sets of overheads however miniscule, 87 sets of promotional material mostly of a banal nature (how many plastic pens can you use use?), all competing with each other, is not only messy, but more important it's highly wasteful and counter-productive. And it doesn't help children in need. How can members of the general public make sense of this? How can we distinguish between one children's charity and another? How can we have the faintest idea what happens to our money? How can a charity, having once captured our interest, sustain it so that we remain regular, committed and brand loyal? For the most part, the answer to all this is that charities don't deal with these issues in a professional way..."

"...Over the first quarter of the twenty-first century branding will become a powerful force in charities. Major charities will capture our concern and interest and our money. They will draw us into Friendship Associations and try to tell us how our particular donations are used. They will become skilled at merchandising their clothing and memorabilia. They will memorialise us.They will create headlines out of heartbreaking causes which will engage us and persuade us to commit money and sometimes time to their cause. They will link us to individual cases, personalise it all. This kind of commitment to charities will enable us to feel better about ourselves."

Friendship Associations? Telling us how our particular donations are used? Memorialising us? Engaging us? Linking us to individual cases? Personalising? Feeling better about ourselves as donors?

If this is what branding is really about, then I love it.

Which is why I find it so frustrating that so many re-brands are simply about the identity, the latest list of values, the logo, the use of photographs and the use of language. In short, the imposition of controls that benefit no one but those who create them.

The critical factor in any brand mix for a charity is the behavior of the individual members of staff in their day to day relations with members of the public - be it face to face, on the telephone or through printed or digital media.

If they focus on showing donors how important they are, what they have helped achieve as individuals and how the charity depends on them to help tackle the causes that donors care about we will see the development of brands that don't just matter, but actually become central to the success of the charities that adopt them.

And after all that, here's something that might not exist if the guys from Chevrolet, who don't seem to understand what branding means, were around forty years ago.

Do brands matter in a recession?

When your charity undertakes a re-brand does it stop and start at the design stage or does it direct the relationship you have with your donors at every level of the organisation?

If it is primarily a design and copy led exercise, you need to watch this great video from Ije Nwokore, Senior Strategist at Wolff Olins.

I love Ije's thoughts on blame.

Do donors ever blame charities for the direct debits they have that they can't afford?

Of course they do.

That's why offering donors insight into what their gift has achieved and control over their giving should be part of every branding strategy.

As in every walk of life, It's the experience that really matters. Not what you look like.

Great logo, shame about the work

Another interesting piece of research has just been released by nfpSynergy.

This study looks at how a charity's size can influence the way in which it is perceived.

Perhaps the most important finding is that over half the people surveyed saw big charities as being "professional" but "wasteful".

It's not difficult to see why. Big charities mimic the most successful companies in how they promote themselves – strong corporate identities, powerful brands, dynamic websites and high production values all shout professional pretty loudly.

But what happens next? Unlike in the commercial world where there's a box to open or service to experience, the donor has no way to judge if the brand values they've bought into are authentic or not.

The question, "What did my money achieve?" normally goes unanswered.

And when this happens – as we've seen before – many people think the worst.

The result is just a perception. But it's a pretty big and damaging perception.

Big charities don't steward gifts very well.

Luckily solving this problem is easy. We need to change our focus and show people what their gift has actually done (and this isn't simply sending out general charity focused magazines).

At Bluefrog, we've proved that by successfully demonstrating impact we can make those big claims seem much less hollow in a donor's mind.