Just text giving – just what the sector ordered?

Just text giving by Vodafone allows charities to create their own SMS code then publicise it to make texting donations for any charity direct from your phone fast and simple. It’s a great idea as it builds on the modern need for everything to happen instantly and it’s ultra-simple which prevents a short attention span getting in the way of good intentions.

However, this first version by Vodafone does have some significant limitations for charities. The two major areas for concern are a) a maximum donation amount of £10 and b) the lack of data the charity gets from each donation, which prevents them from re-contacting the donors in the way they would using other media channels.
For a large proportion of charities their average cash donation is in excess of £10 so using this in isolation could mean they would lose money. It also suggests that this approach isn’t a stand-alone income generator but more of an additional income channel. Furthermore, the issue of ‘bill shock’ may mean that the donation amount has to be limited for now. However, the minimum could conceivably increase as the methods involved in the scheme and awareness of the scheme increase.

The re-contacting issue, however, looks like a trickier problem due to opt in regulations and data protection between operators and the charities themselves. The lack of a method to re-contact donors means people can’t be followed up after their initial donation and limits further potential warm income for the charity.

Having said that it has some very real benefits – Its simplicity allows charities to engage with a younger audience, which is something most are very keen to do more of. It also provides high levels of awareness to smaller charities with simple brand strategies, saves charities the cost of building web material such as dedicated landing pages and microsites and it reduces call centre operator costs that would otherwise be needed at off-peak periods.

So, all in all, I feel that ’Just text giving’ is a large step in the right direction and as long as its simplicity doesn’t erode or prevent charity loyalty I think it will develop into a useful tool that can, and indeed should be, used by all charities.

Bodhi Morrison
Head of Digital

The stars come out for Max

Our TV Manager, Vicky Nunn, was at the recent IoF - here are some of her thoughts:

At the this month’s Institute of Fundraising conference, Max Clifford the PR guru opened up proceedings with a presentation dealing with the use of celebrities in the fundraising areana. With 40 years of experience, he talked a lot of good sense such as making sure the celebrity has a real and genuine connection with the charity. Also, you’re more likely to enlist the support of a celebrity, if you ask for their help on a particular aspect of the charities work.

As someone who has been buying TV airtime over quite a few years this has led me to think why it’s very rare to see commercials feature celebrities. Sure there are a few celebrity voiceovers but not a full blown personal appeal. The last one I can remember is Davina McCall, who featured in the Action for Children commercial.

Why is this?

Maybe charities appreciate Mike Masnick (Techdirt.com) point of view that today's consumer is a totally different animal than the consumer of even five years ago. This means that what was effective and influential five years ago is not necessarily so today, as today's consumer is more likely to be influenced by someone in their social network than a weak celebrity connection.

Today's consumer is informed, time-compressed, and difficult to impress, and they are only influenced by ads that are relevant and provide information. They don't want to have products pushed at them, even from a celebrity. In fact, the data show that relevance and information attributes were key missing ingredients from most celebrity ads. There is no reason why this is not true about fundraising commercials.

Oh and there is always the Tiger Woods/Ryan Giggs scenario to put you off...

Will you be the master of your domain?

The Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit group which controls the internet domain name system, has announced its final guidelines on a new host of web addresses which will allow companies to purchase URLs ending in their brand name. For example Apple could buy the ending ‘.apple’ instead of ‘www.apple.com’.

This potentially opens up a new online marketplace where any company or organization that loses the race for this second generation identity, could be impacted significantly.

Buying a relevant web address has become a significant commercial issue for companies, who found previously that they cannot buy the web URL of choice. “Cyber Squatters” moved in quickly first time around and then, often successfully, forced companies to pay high sums of money to in order to reclaim themselves online. These ‘Cyber Squatters’ are not prone to giving up these rights easily so getting in before them is vital.

However the privilege of owning one of these new TLD’s does not come cheap in the first instance either. The application process for these new names will only be open for 60 days from January 2012 and will cost a whopping $185,000 / £114,000, regardless of success rate! After that, the process will be closed for another three years so companies need to think about this issue urgently.

Due to the costs involved, this opportunity has most impact on governments, large organizations and corporations, however over time I would expect ICANN costs to drop potentially causing a last minute scramble for the most desirable leftovers. To avoid this we recommend that clients review their current and future requirements in the area of their domain names.

So if domain personalisation is only for the business big cheeses, what alternatives are there for everyone else? Well there is a way you can play the TLD game without spending $185K and that is by utilising Dashcoms. What are Dashcoms I hear you cry! They are a free way for anyone to create their own set of TDL’s at no cost and without reference to ICANN, simply by registering new Dashcom (instead of Dotcom) Domains.

Dashcoms are memorable and relevant web addresses such as ‘animal-protection’ ‘live-music’ or ‘tennis-net’, you can even use Facebook Emoticons like musical notes ‘♫♫-♫♫’.

For more information on Dashcoms go to - http://dashworlds.com/src/about.php?P=about

As this is a relatively new technology and needs specific free software installed on the user’s computer this will take a while to build momentum. However, tools are being developed right now that should remove the current need for downloaded software and open up this resource to the masses. Should this happen it could well make the ICANN TDL sale have a whiff of the Emperor’s new clothes. I guess we’ll have to wait and see ………