Alms nous

It is often forgotten that marketers have feelings, too. In the drive to increase sales, win incremental business, or drive up consumer awareness of a brand, it might seem that commercial concerns override anything else. But a range of companies – from household-name, packaged goods manufacturers to financial services providers – have found a way to combine those goals with more philanthropic aims.

Tying up with a charity for promotional purposes is one way in which a personal desire to help others can be translated into a corporate activity that boosts sales and raises funds. The impulse for such an activity is often down to individuals, as John McDermott, marketing director for St John Ambulance, notes: “In commerce, you get a warm kick out of being involved. Increasing sales and helping a charity gives marketers a warm feeling about themselves.”

But however much an individual brand manager may want to support a charity by running a “labels-for-money” donation scheme, for example, considerable research and care needs to be taken before plunging in. Not least of the issues to address is the type of charity with which to link.

It is a sad fact that the same charities which find it difficult to raise funds – because they have a “hard” task such as caring for the elderly or sick – are also less likely to be adopted by brands for promotional purposes. “The dilemma for promoters is that they have an image they wish to maintain for the brand,” says Peter le Conte, chairman of the Institute of Sales Promotion. “Some third-party opportunities are a good fit, others are more difficult to stomach.”

charities which tend to be used fall into the “children and animals” category – those with an emotive appeal and an activity with which consumers can easily identify. This is not simply a question of marketers taking the easy option. Many charities would resist getting involved with promotions, especially environmental groups. Others recognise that the educational process they use to build a donor base cannot be carried out on-pack.

Participating charities may also have to align with corporate goals. “There are definitely companies that have strong links with charitable organisations, very often at a corporate PR level. That might not filter down to marketing and brand people,” says Le Conte.

Marketers also need to check that their customers identify the brand’s values with the charity’s principles. Ian Friar, who retired last year as promotions manager for Heinz, can rightfully claim to have been in the forefront of bringing charity promotions into the marketing world.

When he planned Heinz’s first fundraising promotion in 1976, extensive research was carried out. What it showed, he says, was that “the public was very clear-sighted in that the last thing they wanted was for their heart strings to be tugged, for them to be ‘blackmailed’ into giving for a good cause by products which they already frequently purchased and which were trying to get sales through the backdoor”.

Having pinpointed the concerns consumers would have, Heinz and its then sales promotion agency, Clarke Hooper, took the concept of 57 minibuses paid for by a penny-per-label redemption scheme around the charity sector. To their surprise, many organisations did not leap at the chance, as they were deterred by the on-going maintenance costs.

National Children’s Homes responded more positively, but pitched the idea of saving for a new home. In its first year, the target of 100,000 was easily reached, encouraging Heinz to run the promotion the next year, pulling in 150,000. “We did innovate in the scheme,” recalls Friar. “We sent a certificate to every school which collected more than a certain number of labels, we ran ads in the paper on how the appeal was going, and we put a thank-you promotional label on Heinz’s range after the scheme ended.”

This last element was added as a direct result of consumer concerns which emerged in research – they wanted to be told what was done with the money. Since then, the British Code of Sales Promotion Practice has been changed to make this element a requirement (see box).

Charities have also become more focused in what their role in commercial marketing might be. “Certain charities have begun to wake up and realise they have a brand in themselves. The World Wide Fund for Nature, for example, has lent itself to a number of products and brands and has realised the potential it has. It has become more commercially aware of the value of its logo,” says Matthew Hooper, managing director of Interfocus.

Amanda Croft-Pearman, account director, corporate fundraising, for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, adds: “We have to be careful not to endorse anything. Every single piece of written material has to be approved. Anything on-pack would be approved by our policy department. We carefully monitor how we deal with marketing and how it supports our image.”

It is precisely the high ethical standards underlying charities which can make them attractive to marketers. When the Yorkshire Building Society researched attitudes among the youth market, it found that cruelty to children was the major concern of 11 to 14 and 15 to 19-year-olds, and was second on the list of five to ten-year-olds’ worries.

In response, it invited NSPCC to pitch, alongside five other charities, for a promotional tie-in. The result was the “Happy Kids” account, which gives 1 to the charity for every savings account opened in the course of three months, plus ten per cent of the annual interest.

This was the first time a charity had been linked to young people’s savings. The result was 15,000 new accounts in the first year, raising more than 20,000. YBS also benefited from massive press coverage and an enhanced public image.

Croft-Pearman notes that it is the ability of charities to target specific age groups or sectors of the population which make them an ideal vehicle for marketers’ messages. It has tied in with the launch of an OTC child’s travel sickness version of Dramamine, called Happy Traveller, to put collection boxes on chemists’ counters which invite customers to put their change from the purchase in them.

Microsoft is also sponsoring NSPCC’s schools pack, based on the theme of “Clammy and the Crew”, which uses a green-blob alien and four different child characters to target the charity’s message at each age group. All of these are part of NSPCC’s own fundraising activity, rather than a substitute for it. “As a department, we have a budget, but there is not a specific allocation for those funds which are to be generated on-pack. If we do get a chance, great, but we are doing loads of other things,” says Croft-Pearman.

McDermott says that fundraising is as professional as marketing in its approach, pointing to his own career with Bass, British Coal and Mecca Leisure as a sign of how serious charities are. “People don’t want charities to do favours, it is mutual benefit. We understand and think the same language as brand owners. As long as their needs are compatible with the charity’s aims, then promotions can work for the general good,” he says.

He points out that two-thirds of St John’s 82,000 volunteers are under 18. “So many marketers are interested in getting to active young people – our volunteers have got away from the TV.”

The organisation is seeking a sponsor for its Breath of Life campaign, which aims to give 75,000 people two hours of first-aid training. McDermott says the charity benefits from commercial tie-ins as a way of raising its own profile. “The problem we suffer from is that we blend into the background. People think because we are inuniform we must be funded by the Government,” he says.

If a brand has the right kind of standing with its customers that can make a charity tie-in seem relevant, the benefits can be enormous. Response is often greater than with ordinary self-liquidating schemes, because the public gets to feel it is doing good, not just doing the shopping.

As Hooper notes, this can mean enfranchising people who otherwise do not connect with charity appeals. “They allow a number of people who purchase the brand or product to access a charity and feel they have a part to play. It is an easy way to contribute. Some people do find it difficult to identify the ways and means of contributing – a promotion may be the vehicle to make it easy for them to do so,” he says.

With the new Code of Practice removing one of the prime barriers to such activities, more promoters may be looking to do some good. If so, it is important to find the right fit and also to build in some form of reward for the consumer, even if it is just clear communication of the results.

Croft-Pearman says the added “legs” charity involvement gives a promotion may make these type of campaigns easier to justify commercially, too: “I wouldn’t ever knock philanthropy – that is the fundamental reason for doing charity work. But more and more companies expect a return on their investment. Press coverage and the association with a charity can help to provide that.” l

Tying up with a charity is a sure way to raise a product’s profile. If it results in increased sales, so much the better. With the new Code of Practice now in place, David Reed negotiates the minefield of matching the brand’s values with the principles of the charity