queer ideas

The misdirected power of the brand

Some people think I don't like branding. They are wrong. I love great brands. The trouble is that I don't think many charity brands are very well managed and there are a growing number of pieces of research that serve to confirm my beliefs.

I thought I'd share a few of them after reading the recently published Charity Brand Index which features the UK's top 100 charity brands.

It was compiled using survey data from 3,032 people, who were asked about their awareness of charities and the impression they had of them.

"Respondents were asked about their awareness of 30 charities randomly selected from the list of 150. After highlighting those they were aware of, they were then assigned a maximum of five charities to focus on in the main survey. Respondents were then asked their views on these 150 charities, the metrics subsequently making up the top 100 ranking being: relevance, distinctiveness, familiarity, trust and impression.

‘Consideration to donate’ acted as a proxy for all these measures, which were then all multiplied by prompted awareness to ensure that charities which were loved by a few, but had low awareness, did not achieve a disproportionate rank."

The top ten were:

Macmillan Cancer Support
Cancer Research UK
NSPCC
RSPCA
BBC Children in Need
British Heart Foundation
Comic Relief
Marie Curie Cancer Care
RNLI
British Red Cross

Macmillan, with voluntary income of less than a third of Cancer Research UK, were surprise winners. Their high familiarity score and an extremely positive impression of the brand lifted them clear of the competition.

But what does all this actually mean? What is a brand actually worth?

A study published earlier in the year attempted to estimate the value of American charities. They gave top spot to the YMCA (a charity that doesn't even feature in the UK list) with a worth of almost $6.4 billion. The charity with the best brand image was the American Cancer Society.

A different set of criteria was used to build the US list. They included such factors as size of budget, potential for future growth, volunteer numbers and news coverage in their analysis.

These differences in approaches seem to back up John Murphy's thoughts on brand valuation. John founded global branding consultancy, Interbrand, and has a refreshingly honest opinion on the subject...

"Brand valuation is a 'social science' not a 'physical science'. Valuation opinions will always be just that – opinions."

For me, any assessment of charity brand value has to be based on the additional income it will help generate. The fact that someone knows that a charity exists or answers a specific need is worthless if it doesn't translate to the bottom line. And 'propensity to donate' doesn't quite cut the mustard for me.

It's why reports and studies that inflate the value of brand building activities are so dangerous. Branding is seen by a growing number of people as a universal panacea to a charity's ills and there is precious little evidence to back up their belief.

Branding just doesn't seem to be solving the deep-seated problems the sector faces.

Joshua G2 undertake research into which brands are most loved and hated by the British public and have included charities in their studies. Last year they found that Cancer Research was most loved (followed by Macmillan, RSPCA, NSPCC and PDSA) and Christian Aid was most hated (followed by War on Want,  Oxfam, The Salvation Army and RSPCA). Results for 2007 are here.

But what's interesting is to try and uncover why charities engender these emotions.

Luckily GMI / Mintel did their own study to try and uncover the attitudes underling these emotional reactions (also published in 2008). They assessed charities on a variety of characteristics. These included, trust, social responsibility, pride, innovation, great service, good value, good reputation, distinctive image, consistent high quality and caring for the environment. These were mapped out on radar charts. I've reproduced those for Cancer Research UK and Christian Aid. The darker shape represents the scoring for the charity, the lighter shape is the average for all charities they analysed.

You can see that Cancer Research UK scores very highly on trust and on good reputation. Christian Aid in comparison does very badly on both indices. But what is jaw-droppingly surprising is just how low both charities score on great customer service. But they are not alone – the fact is that every other charity they looked at also scores poorly in this area. Seven other radar charts are posted here (including Friends of The Earth, NSPCC, RSPCA, The Royal British Legion, The British Heart Foundation, Save the Children and Oxfam).

When asked about how engaging these brands were, the results were as shocking. Cancer Research UK was best with 12% of those surveyed describing the brand as engaging. The majority scored in single figures.

And it doesn't take a genius to understand why. Brand guidelines are almost always about the charity. Phrases such as we are brave, we are outraged, we are effective, we are honest and we are just dominate these booklets. And far too often, brand policing is solely about ensuring these sentiments are included in copy. 

What this process does is suppress the focus on generating engagement with donors. A hand typed and signed letter on poor quality stock that talks about what the donor has achieved is rarely going to appear in a set of brand guidelines, but in comparison with a branded corporate style mailing, I know which pack is going to raise most money AND bring the donor closer to the charity. And it is only through reducing the distance between the charity and the donor that we are going to engender real understanding and solidarity.

The days of the self-congratulatory brand are over. We must acknowledge that our brands live solely in the minds of our supporters. Research shows that the majority of people still trust and regard most charities highly. The role of any brand strategy should be to tackle key weaknesses and that includes managing the brand experience as well as influencing brand understanding and values. By doing so, we will take a huge leap forward in managing the ongoing problem of dis-engagement and the accompanying attrition that afflicts so many charities.

My recommendation is we do this by answering the needs of donors. If you haven't seen my posts on donor needs, I'd recommend you look at this.

By engaging and serving those who support us, attrition is being tackled and significant additional funds are being generated – even in times of recession.

Finally, if this has got you thinking, I'd recommend that you read a recent post from Aline Reed on her blog, Bluefrog Creative  where she shares some of her thoughts on brands that generate feelings of love.

An eight point plan for when good intentions go wrong

Some interesting data regarding the impact of Action for Children's recent TV campaign has recently been published.

It shows the campaign did very well, gaining 9% awareness along with a 20% increase in people saying they would be likely to consider donating to the charity. 

It's useful to look at these alongside the results of the Barnardo's TV campaign (I posted on this a few weeks ago) in light of the very different approach that the Action for Children campaign has taken.

As baby creative, the agency who developed the campaign, explain on their website... 

"Shot in a distinctive animation style that helped sidestep the issue of protecting children’s identities, the campaign ads balanced the drama of the young people’s pasts with the positive futures that Action for Children was helping them to achieve. By being forward-facing, and addressing what the charity actually did rather than the abuse suffered by the children, the adverts were able to engage the audience rather than shock them." 

It's great to see that the voice overs weren't done by actors, but were actually from interviews with children (Just like the approach taken by Leonard Cheshire in their Creature Discomforts campaign).

The only trouble is, one of the ads – Dan's story – upset a large number of people through its depiction of a child with autism. Following it's broadcast, a debate started on YouTube, Action for Children's blog and even on Facebook.

It's an important piece of learning. Though many viewers may feel uncomfortable about the TV campaigns run by organisations such as Barnardo's and The NSPCC, they are often supported by people who have suffered abuse. 

In this instance, it seems support from people living with autism wasn't forthcoming. 

I know Action for Children well. I've been lucky enough to visit a number of their projects. They are a fantastic organisation that does amazing work. I imagine the last thing they wanted to do was cause upset and I don't think we will see that particular advertisement again. 

The reason why I mention it, is that it acts as a lesson to us all. Things can go wrong – no matter how well intentioned we are. And we are more often judged by how we respond rather than by how we might have caused the original upset or offense in the first place. 

I know because it happened to me!

When I worked at the YMCA, I received a call out of the blue from a national radio station to discuss a mailing pack we'd produced that had caused upset recipients to call their phone-in show to complain. 

Luckily I had visited the project, met the people concerned and knew everything about the targeting of the appeal to answer their questions from a position of quite detailed knowledge. Even so, I also apologised for the upset we'd caused. That seemed to solve the problem and we later adapted our pack to take into account the issues that had been raised.

I hate to think what could have happened if that pack had gone out today. There are so many information streams where people can voice their feelings that We would have needed a response for probably half a dozen different types of media.

That's why I'd always recommend taking some time to develop a contingency plan for when communications generate a different response to the one that you had hoped for. There is no magic answer to handling a crisis, but there are a few things that you can do to make sure you act in the best possible way to resolve the situation quickly and effectively.

1. Your plan should focus on what your charity should do when things go wrong, who should be involved and when. Detail information flows. Show who will respond and how.

2. Don't presume those people criticising you are your enemy. They may have got the wrong end of a stick or be genuinely upset. Either way, it is their perception of you that counts. That is what you must work to change. Above all, show compassion.

3. Hold up an objective mirror to your organisation. Have you done something wrong? Are the complaints valid? Should you apologise?

4. Whatever your answer, always acknowledge someone's concern, even if you honestly believe it is misplaced.

5. Concentrate on actions rather than words. People judge you on what you do rather than what you say.

6. Your first response is your most important communication. Don't be rushed into responding too quickly. I always recommend people sleep on it before responding to an angry email (and guess what? Those draft emails always change). 

7. Take external advice. Sometimes you are too close to the issues. Trusted colleagues at other charities can offer an impartial view. Sometimes your agency may have experience of helping to resolve similar issues. 

8. Learn from what happens and incorporate this into your everyday working practices.

Finally, i've spent a fair few hours looking into and learning about autism as a result of this post and I think the following film made by the mother of a little boy with autism might be worth sharing.

My seven stages of Twitter

You must have heard about Twitter. If you are already a user, you'll probably be able to relate to much of my experience. If you haven't yet joined, hopefully this will help you find out what lies in store for you.

First a few notes for the real beginner.

• A tweet is a micro-blog. You have 140 characters to share a thought. People use URL shorteners so that they can post links. 
• A follower is someone who reads a twitterer's tweets. When you follow someone, their tweets are automatically delivered to you as they are posted. 
• The @ symbol before a name is simply there to define the name of a Twitter user. I'm @markyphillips for example.
• The # (hashtag - it's alt 3 on a mac) defines discussion topics to enable simple searches. #followfriday for example is the hashtag given to the day each week when recommendations on people to follow are shared (you will have to sign up to see what is happening on followfriday).

Now, back to my seven stages...

Dismissal

I first heard about Twitter a couple of years ago. I'm not sure who told me about it first. It was either @rydesign or @breathingsince.

At that point it looked to me like some sort of mass texting service that you could use to let your friends know about the state of your hangover, what you'd had for lunch and what particular song was playing on your itunes.

I thought it seemed like a load of rubbish.

Signing up

After hearing and reading a few news stories, I finally signed up in February. I made some inane comments along the lines of those described above. My opinion hadn't really shifted much.

Fiddling

I started following a few people and organisations outside my network of friends and got a few follows back. Being a newbie, I didn't quite understand the rules. I did a small number of business type tweets that referenced queerideas.co.uk and Bluefrog along with other sites and news that I thought might be of interest to charity fundraisers. 

Interest

@AlineReed let me in on @serafinowicz's use of Twitter and Just Giving to raise £5,000 for Comic Relief.  I blogged on this back in the middle of March. The fact that someone was using it for fundraising suddenly lifted Twitter out of the realms of a disjointed stream of consciousness into something that charities could use to engage donors and raise funds.

Oooooh I thought (in a rather Frank Spencer way).

Engagement

I started following 'hard core', looking for all Twitter streams that interested me. From social networking specialists, through to charities, fundraising, advertising, Arsenal, news, celebrities and politicians. I gained new insight into charity fundraising, uncovered fantastic pieces of psychological and social research, discovered great new organisations like herorat.org from @AmandaSanter and started to interact with CEOs of charities like @Kjer from FORGE. 

I started being braver about my own tweets too. I saw that personal comments helped to turn organisations into people who I grew to like. Rather than just keeping it to newsy items, I started to joke and returned to a few of the tweets that I'd dismissed weeks earlier. I even started to swap restaurant reviews with @causeperfect and we have been talking about setting up a 140 character restaurant review twitterstream called #wowchows (credit to Jackie for the name).

I also moved from using the twitter website to TweetDeck for my computer and Tweetie for my phone. These make it easier to communicate with large numbers of twitterers.

Conversion

Recently my brain has started changing. I am now thinking in 140 character chunks and I'm much more economical when explaining issues. 

What has been the biggest surprise is that it has changed how I give to charity. If I like the people who are tweeting, I'm much more likely to give to them. As a result I'm now a donor to the Lake Simicoe Conservation Foundation in Canada through @KimberleyCanada, Borneo Orangutang Survival Inernational through @DerekHumphries, Charity:Water through @scottharrison and as I've mentioned already, to FORGE through @kjer. I've even got around to re-starting a direct debit to Amnesty International UK because of the tweets from @SusanneUre from Amnesty in Canada.

Smaller charities in the UK have also caught my attention. Organisations like @HearingDogs and @bullyinguk are in the big league on Twitter being regularly recommended on #followfriday. The biggies such as @theNSPCC and @christian_aid are still comparatively quiet and follow very few people.

Twitter is another enormous step in the globalisation of charities. It is changing the ground rules on a weekly basis. Just because I live in the UK, for example, doesn't mean I have to support a charity based here. The feedback I get from my Twitter friends is what is important to me. 

I can see that more of my donations will be given through the way I interact with them on Twitter. Next on my list is going to be the sponsorship of a Lion Guardian through Wildlife Direct - brought to my attention directly by the CEO – @paulakahumbu.

Evangelist

Of all the social networking vehicles I've engaged with, Twitter has been the most enriching and rewarding – in all senses. Yes, there is a fair amount of chaff amongst the grains of wheat, but each snippet of news that I read, each thought that I'm exposed to and each link that I click returns so much that it is worth it.

I really can't see the day when I'll stop blogging and I don't see Twitter damaging blogs at all. At the end of the day much of the joy of Twitter is through being referred to larger thought pieces, more detailed stories and research findings and I'd like to continue adding to the knowledge and understanding that Twitter is helping tens of thousands of people to unlock.

Why don't you join us? New friends, understanding and knowledge comes free with every sign up.

You start here.

A change in direction for the NSPCC

There was a piece of news that seems to have sneaked under the radar in the last week or so, but could be the first step of a change in fundraising practice that will influence a whole range of charities.

It did get a mention in the charity press, but the real story was in the Daily Telegraph and The Times.

Andrew Flanagan, the NSPCC's newly appointed chief executive was talking about his new role and how his commercial skills would transfer to the charity sector.

The NSPCC is facing difficult times. Legacy income is down by £2 million and the closure of offices in Derbyshire and Norfolk have been announced – all accompanied by redundancies.

Unlike other large children's charities, the NSPCC doesn't have a raft of government contracts to fall back on. It relies on the generosity of donors for 85% of its income and as the recession bites, it is changing out of necessity.

And Andrew has been very frank about where those changes will be:

"I think we may have tried to advance on too broad a front. We need to move forward on a more methodical basis now."

The "broad front" refers to the charity's campaigning work. Most notably the Full Stop Campaign which raised £250 million between 1999 and 2007.

"We raised the money, and spent it wisely on good things, and people's lives changed as a result. But I don't think it advanced us towards the goal of ending child cruelty in terms of the expectations at the beginning."

What we will now see is a different approach where the NSPCC will put high-profile campaigns on hold whilst the downturn continues.

Just as companies like Coca-Cola, IBM and Shell are implementing recession survival strategies, so it appears is the NSPCC.

And the first strategy on any list is placing the focus on core business.

To Andrew, this is ensuring that the expansion of ChildLine goes ahead and other services such as their Caring Dads programme and the support provided for abused children going through court cases continues.

By concentrating on this type of innovative work, he hopes to encourage the government and local authorities to take note of the outcomes, engage in the programmes and expand them, presumably adding balance to the NSPCC's sources of income.

But, importantly for us, it looks like it could also mean a move to a new approach to fundraising.

I remember a piece of research that Bluefrog undertook a number of years ago on attitudes to children's charities. The NSPCC dominated people's thoughts in the discussions. The participants tended to see the charity as a rescue service protecting children at immediate risk, but they didn't really know what happened next. If I recall correctly, one person put it rather well.

"You can imagine the NSPCC knocking doors down, but after that...

...they (the children) are probably handed over to social services or something".

There was a definite gap in the charity map that the NSPCC hadn't filled that it looks like the projects that feature in Andrew's strategy may well cover off. And if they do that, I can see the NSPCC coming out of the recession stronger than when it started.

But perhaps more importantly, it may start other charities thinking about how they communicate with donors during the economic downturn. The NSPCC has a huge amount of experience and a very powerful voice. Fundraisers the world over listen when they speak and if they are moving away from campaigning work, other charities may well follow. And they are likely to raise more funds as a result.

At Bluefrog, we have already seen this change start to appear in briefs as the focus moves towards generating income and loyalty rather than on building brands. And we are not alone.

It was put very well by Derek Humphries in a recent tweet. 

"brand-literate fundraising is on the up. About time."

Do you want your donors to love your charity?

I remember being at a fundraising conference a few years back where delegates were talking with jealousy about the passion that people had for football teams and rock stars. One person summed up this feeling by saying how he felt when he went to see his favourite band:

"When I go to a concert, I just go crazy with my air guitar. I want my donors to do that."

Football teams and rock bands generate huge levels of passion and commitment. People will spend thousands of pounds following them. Cripes, some people will even emblazon their bodies with names, logos and even pictures – just like my friend Chelsea Paul.

But are charities ready for what that sort of passion entails? Do they really want it? 

Would they welcome thousands of people turning up at their offices in response to a change of policy. Petitions being delivered pressing for the removal of chief executives. Or even be in the situation that faced Mike Ashley, owner of Newcastle United, who didn't feel safe enough to go to a game at his own club?

And of course, there is the reverse of love – hate. For every person who loves a team or band, there will be another who takes an opposing view. Let's take the football team who currently top the Premier League for example – Manchester United.

I have created a love-o-meter and put Man U through it to see what happens (OK it's not a love-o-meter, it's just Google and I'm searching "love manchester united", "love man u" and "love man united" against the "hate" equivalents).

I've found 123,600 references to loving and 70,100 to hating, which gives a love-o-meter ratio of 1.8. Chelsea does better with a ratio of 2, whilst Arsenal gets a good 3.4. Liverpool, however, with 232,000 loves vs only 40,800 hates, tops the "Big 4" with a ratio of 5.7.

It's similar for bands. Coldplay generates a return of 5, whilst there is another massive Merseyside love in from The Beatles with a ratio of 12 (with over 1.15 million loves).

(And while we are at it, Mcdonald's with their I'm lovin' it campaign, generates 18,700 hates).

And I imagine you know that I couldn't resist testing a few of the country's biggest charities on the love-o-meter. The number of returns was tiny compared to music and football. Only a few hundred people were driven to blog or comment about the voluntary organisations that I chose – Oxfam, NSPCC, RSPCA and The National Trust. 

As you'll see, The National Trust came out way on top with a ratio of 94.8 and at the bottom was Oxfam with a ratio of 4.

But it's the comments that people make that are most interesting (if you discount the obviously ridiculous ones such as:

"Last time, I gave them my old demob suit. I turned the telly on and saw President Mugabe wearing it...I hate Oxfam".)

The vast majority of love posts for Oxfam, for example, are about the shops.

"I absolutely love Oxfam! they're definitely my charity shop of choice".

"I ave to say dat I personally love oxfam!!!!! it may sound stoky but omg the clothes are top of last centurys range and they are amazingly stylish and cheap".

And the hate ones are often about face to face recruitment or direct debits.

"Sometimes, i hate Oxfam for having my money when I want to go to lunch or buy something frivolous, but it's a fleeting thing."

"I hate Oxfam. Walking through town today, i have been accosted by several of Oxfam's offensive young chuggers."

Ok. Back to being sensible. The idea of the love-o-meter is nothing more than a little fun messing around with Google, but I think there is something we can learn from it.

People have their emotions stirred when something effects them personally – by winning goals or fantastic music or more mundanely by finding a great bargain in a shop or by being inconvenienced in the street – but it would seem people are rarely driven to strong emotion by what a charity is actually doing towards achieving their key mission.

And I don't think it's because they don't care. 

I think it is because we are not talking enough about the role of the donor in what we do. We give facts and figures in magazines, appeals and on-line but we forget that human beings are powered by emotion – not by reason.

As Lovemarks points out, a whole range of studies have proven that if the emotion centres of the brain are damaged in an accident or by disease, we don't just stop laughing or crying, we also lose the ability to make decisions.

It's best summed up by the neurologist, Donald Calne:

"The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions."

And if we are going to get people to love charities as much as football teams or bands we need to remember it's what we offer the donor that is important. By moving them emotionally, by engaging them, by offering them a chance to grow – by focussing on their individual needs as people – we will succeed.

Then we may have another issue to deal with as people try to gain more control over what charities do, but as my dear old friend, Martin McAuley often says:

"That's a different class of problem, Mark".

A new resource

There are a fair few blogs around with a focus on fundraising and a big chunk of other ones  that look at management issues. But I haven't seen too many that look at management from a charity perspective.

We work in a very special industry. One where people are treated like people rather than staff members who are simply cogs in a machine. And I know from personal experience that sometimes this approach can be exploited. 

As managers, we give people the benefit of the doubt, think of how we can help rather than start investigations, and rarely even consider what less than honourable motivations could be driving someone's actions.

Bluefrogger, Matt Parkes has created a site that addresses this particular concern and other wider management issues (with a generous nod to fundraising) in his blog, parkeslife.

It's a great chance to share the thoughts of someone who has worked at a senior level in some very large UK charities – NSPCC, ChildLine, CAFOD. You never know what you are going to find when you visit, but you do know it will be useful.