Anti-Competitive or Competitive Advantage?

It used to be the view that brands should never mention competitors in their adverts. The reasoning was that why would you want to give them any exposure? You’re basically giving them free publicity, especially if we’re following the wisdom, ‘all publicity, is good publicity’. There are also various legal battles that one could face through mentioning that your brand is better/cheaper than another brand, although the rules have been relaxed since 2008.

In the battle of the supermarket supremacy this age-old wisdom has been replaced with what seems like a surge in comparative advertising. Take for example the Tesco versus ASDA price comparison war. We’ve even had the more upmarket supermarkets such as Waitrose creating adverts to say they’re as cheap as Tesco on a range of branded products, in a bid to keep their shoppers in times when people are tightening up the purse strings. But since every supermarket seems to be claiming they’re the overall cheapest it’s left us wondering; can they all really be the cheapest? And doesn’t it eventually become a bit like political parties – who do you trust?

However, there may be smarter ways to beat the competitor, and the recent campaign by Newcastle Brown Ale shows how well parody advertisement can work in the right environment. The creative is based around the heavyweight advertising Stella Artois campaign, with the tag line ‘It’s a Chalice, not a glass’ trying to give the brand a slightly more glamorous edge. Newkie Brown took this and turned it on its head, ‘Who uses the word “Chalice”?’ implying that Stella Artois are trying to make their drink seem fancy when it really isn’t. Whereas Newkie Brown are far more down to earth, and with a ‘no bollocks’ attitude – and note they didn’t have to mention Stella for this campaign to work.

In the fundraising world creating a unique place in the hearts of potential donors is vital. You’re certainly not going to see charities comparing themselves to other charities, as it’s not going to win the hearts of their potential donors. Or are you? We all know money is really tight at the moment with donors rationalising the causes they’re going to support so maybe there is a place for some healthy knocking copy…

Felicity Bramald, Media Planner Buyer

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