Third Sector's Charity Brand Index

It doesn't have to be big to be effective, writes the director of Communications Inc in Third Sector Magazine

Earlier this month, Macmillan Cancer Support was hailed as the most successful charity brand in Third Sector's Charity Brand Index.

Because Macmillan beat bigger names such as Cancer Research UK and the NSPCC, the victory was interpreted as evidence that smaller charities can punch above their weight.

I don't agree with this interpretation. One of the reasons so many people have heard of Macmillan nurses is that one in three people in this country is affected by cancer at some time. We are so familiar with Macmillan that it is almost a generic term - we use it to describe any medical person concerned with palliative care. Consequently, Macmillan has a high level of recall and is a widely recognised brand.

A cursory look at the top 25 charities in the index reveals that the organisations whose brands are most successful are those that have made a big investment in external communications over sustained periods, enjoyed exceptional access to free exposure via TV programming or achieved visibility through people - as in the case of Macmillan.

So although Macmillan has less cash to invest in its paid-for external outreach than some of the other top 25, it achieves high visibility simply by calling its staff by its name.

The inescapable fact is that no charity made the top 25 without a massive level of external exposure. Regardless of whether it has been achieved through a large direct spend on advertising and direct marketing, or a large indirect spend on PR and media outreach, all these organisations have a high level of visibility and all of them have sophisticated approaches to maintaining their place on that list.

These charities have brands that leverage change, raise income, influence behaviour and further their aims. That's something all charities would like to be able to do, but the index offers scant hope that this is possible without a sustained programme of investment in external communications.

The solution is to be highly focused. Most charities don't need to reach the general public - only sections of it. The more focused we can be about identifying and narrowing those sections, the more effectively a strong brand can be developed and built.

It is possible to have the best brand with the right target audience for your work and be virtually unheard of by the wider world. You need to expand the brand only as the charity expands and the need for it increases or changes. Until then, although we might also aspire to the brand recognition of Macmillan, we don't necessarily need it in order to be effective.

For more Communications at: thirdsector.co.uk/resources/goodpractice

FACT FILE - Charity branding

The inaugural Charity Brand Index was published on 9 November in partnership with PRWeek and market research company Harris Interactive.

The rankings were based on a survey of 3,032 members of the public. Respondents were asked questions on subjects ranging from recognition of the charity's name and support for its cause to their level of trust in it and whether they remembered seeing media coverage.

Macmillan Cancer Support has an annual income of £126m. The second placed charity, Cancer Research UK, has an annual income of £476m.

The other charities in the top five were the NSPCC, the RSPCA and BBC Children in Need.

In a 2007 study of charity brands by consultancy Intangible Business, the top five brands were Cancer Research UK, the National Trust, Oxfam, the Salvation Army and the British Red Cross.

The top 25 charity brands, according to Third-Sector's Charity Brand Index:

1. Macmillan Cancer Support
2. Cancer Research UK
3. NSPCC
4. RSPCA
5. BBC Children in Need
6. British Heart Foundation Comic Relief
8. Marie Curie Cancer Care
9. British Red Cross RNLI
11. Guide Dogs
12. Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity
13. Oxfam
14. Help the Aged
15. Age Concern
16. St John Ambulance
17. Barnardo's
18. RNIB
19. Royal British Legion The Salvation Army
21. Save the Children UK
22. WWF
23. Battersea Dogs & Cats Home The National Trust
25. Breast Cancer Care

Failure at ICCAT

After meeting for ten days in Recife, Brazil ICCAT has once again failed to end fishing for Atlantic bluefin tuna, setting the catch limit at 13,500.

Only a zero catch limit could have maximised the chances that Atlantic bluefin tuna could recover to the point where the fishery could exist in the future.

Comms INC produced this poster for display at Recife airport in Brazil

Green groups present at the negotiations are blaming this failure on Europe, accusing them of representing the Spanish fishing fleet.

Although ICCAT, who also manages sharks, took a small step towards their protection with a ban on the retention and landing of big eye threshers, it failed to take this opportunity to protect other oceanic sharks.

To read what The Times has to say about this, please visit this link.

The fate of Atlantic Bluefin and threatened shark species including spurdog and porbeagle now rests with the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) when it meets in March in Doha, Qatar.

Watch this space....

Copenhagen will fail to deliver Climate Change treaty

After months of crossed fingers and desperate pleas it looks like hopes are fading for a successful outcome at Copenhagen.

The US has finally admitted that a legally binding treaty is no longer a possibility and that a political agreement is the most that can be expected.

With the political arena proving unable or unwilling to act, the pressure is mounting on the NGO community to enable action at a grass roots level.

What remains to be seen is whether enough can be achieved in time.

To read what the Guardian has to say about this, please visit this link.

STARS Foundation Impact Awards

Its STARS time again next week. Each year the STARS Foundation brings over the recipients of its annual Impact Awards for an incredible round of training, networking, media interviews and sharing, culminating in the Award Ceremony.

Its an extraordinary opportunity to work with some of the most inspiring people we come across in an average year. Their enthusiasm for the little work we do with them is boundless and refreshing. These are people you don’t forget, the kind who make a real difference in the lives of children by being intelligent and clever and passionate and who stay in the mind and heart long after they’ve returned to Africa.

The first year the Awards were held we met Val and Dickson from the Island Hospice in Zimbabwe – an outstanding organisation which whom we still work and who’s 30th anniversary year we’re supporting while the organisation struggles under very difficult circumstances. Getting ready to work with this year’s recipients – which include three from Asia for the first time – reminded me of the first Awards and the optimism with which Val and Dickson spoke about the future of Zimbabwe. No comment.

To find out more about the STARS Foundation, please visit: http://www.starsfoundation.org.uk/

Arctic Seas Turn To Acid

The scariest thing about climate change is how little we understand the feedback consequences with the Ocean.

To read the guardian article, please visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/arctic-seas-turn-to-acid

Also, keep an eye out for IPSO site launching soon: www.stateoftheocean.org

Bangkok Climate Talks Latest

The news from the Bangkok climate talks is bad – and its only day one.

If – when our leaders fail to give us the deep carbon cuts required we’re going to need to feel that it is worthwhile taking individual action and be able to inspire others to follow suit. Sign up to 10:10 and pass the word – perhaps we can show that people are capable and willing to do what’s required this time, even if our representatives aren’t.

http://1010uk.org/

Snowglobes and Cartoons at The UN

It was Sustainable Fisheries negotiations at the UN last week and time to remind the international community about its commitments in relation to UN General Assembly Resolution 61/105 – protection for the deep oceans.

The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition – with whom Comms Inc has worked since 2003 - was running a side event at the meeting in order to demonstrate their ongoing engagement and campaigning on the issue. We wanted to show that the Coalition is still highly active and paying close attention.

Get A Move On
Consequently we had great fun presenting the negotiators with DSCC ‘Get a Move On’ snowglobes and cartoons by Tony Husband, Steve Way and Jim Toomey.

As always it was a solid piece of work from the Coalition and its always a pleasure to wander the corridors with Matt, Peggy, Kristina, Lisa, Karen, Duncan and the gang.

Round Two of the negotiations is in November.
Check out what Richard Black, Editor of BBC Science Online, had to say by clicking here.

Why do Charities Want Media Coverage?

Scientists seldom say anything headline grabbing, so it falls to charity communications teams to act as interpreters between the scientist and journalist, and sometimes the public. Their job is to translate science-speak into English, to point out what is significant, new or exciting, and to perform this job responsibly.

Sometimes this goes wrong, as happened when The Daily Mail ran a misleading story about the link between intelligence and sexual satisfaction in women. So it is little surprise that research for the World Cancer Research Fund found people were confused by misleading cancer stories and had lost trust in the media and scientists.

But perhaps it's more surprising that the charity called on other charity press teams to use restraint in their press releases. It obviously believed they were contributing to the problem.

A press officer rarely issues a release without it having gone through an approval process. So if a charity is being irresponsible in its quest for media coverage, culpability is not always with the person who wrote the material.

Charities seek media coverage for many reasons: it can boost fundraising, attract supporters and increase influence and outreach. But someone has to decide what the priority is and the extent to which scientific breakthroughs can be pushed to raise the profile of an organisation.

If the purpose of coverage is to inform patients about the breakthrough, it is unlikely that the mass media is an appropriate or reliable vehicle. If you want informed coverage that acknowledges the caveats, don't give it to The Daily Mail. Give it to an outlet that wants facts rather than headlines, wouldn't dream of taking a press release at face value and asks tough questions. At which point you might see the coverage evaporate - and, as a result, you might also have another problem.

So let's not blame the press officers or the journalists who file what their particular outlets require of them, but ask instead some tougher institutional questions about why we want coverage, what purpose it serves and which stories can be used to achieve what.

Then let's acknowledge that there is tension between the competing needs of charities and the functions they ask their media teams to perform, and let's develop some cross-sector guidelines for addressing that.

If that process is built around the needs of the end-user, the results will be challenging - perhaps revolutionary; but they will at least protect the people who are most important in all this.

FACT FILE - THE SCIENCE OF HEADLINES

Last month, a YouGov survey for cancer charity the World Cancer Research Fund found that 46 per cent of the public did not trust media stories about how food and drink affected the risk of cancer. Richard Evans, head of communications at the charity, said press officers should sometimes go against their instincts and play down the findings of scientific studies, even if this meant getting on to page 34 of newspapers rather than getting the splash.

In May, the NHS Knowledge Service criticised The Daily Mail for a front-page story claiming that new research showed "Intelligent women have better sex." The research, funded by health research charities the Wellcome Trust and the Chronic Disease Research Foundation, measured 'emotional intelligence' - the ability to identify and manage emotions - but much of the reporting suggested it measured IQ. The NHS said the headlines were incorrect and raised concern that the report would lead to changes in counselling methods.

Mirella von Lindenfels Column
PUBLISHED in Third Sector Magazine July 09

On yer bike: Achieving media coverage in a changing media landscape

Column by Mirella Von Lindenfeld (First appeared in Third Sector Magazine)

Twenty years ago, the fastest way to get a press release to the media was to stick a volunteer on a bike to Fleet Street. We worked with fixed TV news slots, fixed print deadlines, long lunches and press conferences.

Things have changed. In 2009, reporters work across a range of linked platforms and often have to keep on top of rolling updates. They may also have to produce special reports, write blogs and deal with the incoming email generated by having their addresses plastered across the top of their articles.

The boundary between newspapers, TV channels and websites is becoming increasingly blurred. Journalists who work for one are now often expected to make contributions to the others; everyone is expected to file and film constantly.

Add to that the sweeping cuts and redundancies affecting the media and you'll begin to recognise that your average journalist is struggling under extreme time pressure.

Understanding and working around this is critical to achieving coverage. It's why we haven't organised a press conference for three years: we know they don't work any more - journalists don't have time to attend.

Take your story and your expert to the right correspondent, to a place of their choosing at a time that suits them and the chances are you'll get your coverage. You'll also get the opportunity to find out how their editorial needs have changed in the recession, what their new daily deadlines are or what it really takes to swing a story past the editor these days.

This knowledge gathering is especially important in these uncertain times. It is sometimes impossible to predict accurately what kind of stories are likely to fly, what kind of content is needed for linked platforms or what will work for new media outlets.

Even the journalists themselves often struggle to know, and what worked last year is unlikely to have the same success this year. Annual events that were once certain to attract large-scale media attendance are no longer achieving the same success.

Good media relations have always been about understanding what journalists need and how they need it. We don't use volunteers on bikes any more - technology allows us to deliver our stories immediately, without leaving the office. But that technology has also changed the face of news. For that reason, now more than ever, we should stop relying on emails, get away from our desks and take our stories to the media, just like in the old days.