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Charity Comms Strategic Communicators Conference April 2025

Root co-sponsor Charity Comms Strategic Communicators' Conference April 2025

Using a brand ambassador was key to the Drinkaware campaign strategy in 2024, so we picked up on the idea and helped to supercharge it. Former England goalkeeper David Seaman was already successful in the role, promoting the online Drinkaware Check tool, which enabled participants to better understand their relationship with alcohol.&nbsp;
We saw an opportunity to enhance this work through the media plan using podcast sponsored reads. The strategy helped open the door to recruiting a host of household names that would amplify the Drinkaware message for us. The sponsored read approach meant the campaign benefitted from the endorsement of the podcast host, effectively multiplying its brand ambassadors.
Our host selection focussed on using well-known and loved celebrities who could reach across several audience sectors, widening the campaign's appeal. We succesfully secured a list that included Alan Carr, Gary Neville, Adam Buxton, Annie Mac, Josh Widdicombe and Rob Beckett. Naturally, hosts will deliver a podcast script applying their unique personality and style which lends greater clout to the campaign message and supported the official brand ambassador's work extremely effectively.

Brand Ambassador Multiplier Hack

Partnering closely with creative agency Consider, this campaign tells the story of ordinary people stopped in their tracks by life-changing neurological conditions. It gives concerned individuals a glimpse into those experiences and explains how The National Brain Appeal is behind breakthroughs in treatment and therapies that have a transformative impact on lives.
The campaign driver is The National Brain Appeal's commitment to raise &pound;7 million towards the creation of UCL's state-of-the-art facility on Grays Inn Road, London. Once completed, UCL's advanced neuroscience hub will bring together research scientists, clinicians, and patients in a world-leading facility for dementia and neurological disease research.&nbsp;
With activity running across TNBA's social channels, we educated members of the public about the organisation's vital work and prompted people to sign up for a monthly newsletter where they could learn about the latest developments in neurological research. We then retargeted users who had interacted with the ads, showing them the human impact their donation could have for those whose treatment benefits from the work of the charity.&nbsp;
This campaign was a toe in the water for The National Brain Appeal and generated a highly positive response. As a consequence, we will proudly develop the campaign across 2025, supporting them to continue raising the bar on their fundraising.

The National Brain Appeal's Capital Campaign Accelerates

Toxic Influence is a Greenpeace film exposing beauty brand Dove's damaging environmental practices over the past two decades. It was released in September to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of Dove's 'Real Beauty' campaign. In a style that parodies the brand's US work, the film shows mothers and daughters expressing their shocked reactions at first learning of Dove's (and Unilever's) preeminent role as global plastic polluters.&nbsp;
We worked to spread the message as widely as possible, inviting people to take a moment out of their day and watch a 15-second clip of Toxic Influence. We targeted women between eighteen and thirty-four, reaching them in trusted, editorial content. In a world where giant corporates have been known to leverage their value to publishers to neutralise criticism, we used smart planning to overcome this. In doing so, we secured top digital placements across several major national newsbrands and the beauty magazines where Dove's influence is most evident.&nbsp;
The campaign was successful, with Toxic Influence reaching over 700,000 people, 70% of whom went on to watch the clip in full. We are proud to have achieved campaign visibility where it mattered, despite the hurdles frequently faced by Greenpeace when campaigning with messages confronting global commerce. If you want to join the fight, watch Toxic Influence<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPhKzGx1Sc0"> here</a>.

Dove's Toxic Influence

Social Bite's Cold Journey Part II

We&rsquo;ve helped Greenpeace hold two governments to account in 2024.&nbsp;
When Rishi Sunak announced a snap election in May, Greenpeace needed to act swiftly to help move the dial in favour of Carla Denyer, Bristol Central's Green Party Candidate.
Labour opponent Thangam Debbonaire had held the seat since 2015, winning 63% of the vote in the previous election. The Green party had made the seat a key target in a bid to secure their second seat in Parliament.&nbsp;
We used inserts and door-drops to reach Bristol Central voters the weekend before the election. These vocalised Greenpeace&rsquo;s support for Bristol&rsquo;s first Green Party Member of Parliament.&nbsp;
In a historic moment for the city, Denyer&rsquo;s campaign was successful. Bristol Central welcomed its new Member of Parliament on July 4th with a 10,407-strong majority.&nbsp;
They have the money. She has the power.
In October, we helped mount a direct challenge to Chancellor Rachel Reeves ahead of her first budget announcement since taking office.&nbsp;
Greenpeace lobbied to introduce a new National Renewal Tax of 2.5% on wealth exceeding &pound;10 million. We ran ads in The Guardian, The Times, and The Financial Times. These called for the new tax, explaining it could generate &pound;130 billion for a &lsquo;greener, fairer Britain&rsquo;.&nbsp;
In addition we scheduled D12s and D6s in and around Westminster Station. Transport for London refused to run these, stating that the use of the Chancellor's image required her permission?? The Evening Standard picked up that eyebrow raising story and, with perfect timing, ran the Greenpeace ad in their headline to the story that day. TFL eventually reversed their decision, but too late for the original sites. We responded quickly and switched to a series of digivans in time for Wednesday, October 30th's budget announcement.

Holding Governments to Account 

The Christmas period is only one part of a year-round approach to fundraising for Shelter. This year our campaign work with them starts in early November, running until Mid December. The charity will revisit inserts and direct mail, supported by digital display.&nbsp;
The creative message is a powerful one. It turns the lens on the under-reported scandal of children as the casualties of the housing crisis. We are reminded&nbsp; '...this Christmas more than 120,000 children in the UK will be left in temporary accommodation. A damp shipping container. A badly converted office block. A cramped B&amp;B with 6 people to a room. This is not a home.'
As keen advocates of a well-rounded multi-channel strategy, we're excited to see what can be achieved for Shelter as they deliver this year's hard-hitting message through sometimes underrated 'legacy' channels. It's a considered approach in what is expected to be a notoriously difficult year for donations.
Our work across the homeless sector is in partnership with the creative and strategy agency Catalyst Works.

‘One Child Waking Up Homeless at Christmas is a Tragedy’

There is no cure for EB, which causes the skin to become extremely fragile and to blister and tear at the slightest touch. As a result, sufferers experience constant and extreme pain. Debra is the national charity and patient support group for people living with the condition.
This November, we are supporting Debra as they launch a small test fundraising campaign to raise awareness of the rare skin condition. 
The campaign message draws attention to the enduring pain that is suffered and states the instinctive reaction in us all, &lsquo;No one should have to live like this&rsquo;, using #StopThePain.
This initial &ldquo;toe in the water&rdquo; will tap into the high levels of economic reach and frequency delivered by paid social channels. The learnings from the campaign will inform wider channel selection in potential roll out activity in early 2023.

A Life Free of Pain

More than 300 deaths each year have been linked to illegal levels of pollution in Tyneside, in emission hotspots such as the centre of Newcastle. 
The Newcastle Clean Air Zone is part of a Government initiative to improve air quality across the UK designed to address these issues, and reduce the number of older, more polluting vehicles in city centres
This Autumn, we are supporting both Newcastle and Gateshead City councils as they launch a campaign that will inform people of the introduction of the zone in 2023, and what they need to do if it affects them.
 The campaign is designed to generate awareness of the zone across the whole of the North East in general, and a tighter geographical region around Newcastle itself in particular, and will run through the Autumn of 2022 and the first half of 2023.
The emphasis is on high impact, high awareness, high coverage media channels. The strategy includes Iconic OOH digital sites in prime locations, Adsmart geo targeted to a radius around the city, key regional media and paid social to reach our two defined targets, the public at large &amp; taxi and van drivers.
The broad spread of channels ensures impact and coverage by reaching people at many different times and in many different ways in order to drive home transmission of the message. It's the Root mantra - catch 'em everywhere you can!

Newcastle Clean Air Zone

September and October are bellwethers for Autumn spending behaviour in the charity sector. By the time Autumn 2022 campaigns were in the planning stage we knew it was going to be an exceptionally tough period - more so than the first half of the year. So if caution was going to creep into investment decisions we'd see the trend emerge in the Q3 months.
The latest Nielsen data for October dropped last week so we crunched the numbers to see what they could tell us.
We stripped out the Direct Mail figures because these include warm mailing spend, leaving us a picture across 7 channels, Door Drops, TV, Press, Radio, Digital, Outdoor &amp; Cinema. Nielsen doesn't report Paid Social data so we can't include this.
Isolating September &amp; October activity, we looked back to 2018 to compare how the sector was investing during 'normal', pandemic-free years. We also analysed the Top 10 Charity Ad Spends vs Everyone Else, just in case their financial weight significantly skewed the picture.
The good news, charity ad spend in September &amp; October was the highest it has been since 2018. In October inflation hit a 40 year high, demand for food banks surged by 46%, and energy price rises were the highest on record. Charities responded and increased their YOY investment in acquisition campaigns by 14%. The trend can be seen in organisations big and small.
<a href="https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/about-us-publications/ukgivingreport2009.pdf">The CAF report</a> that followed the 2008 recession said that while some donors felt the need to reduce what they give, they still gave what they could.
Acquisition helps charities to compensate for those who need to give a little less by bringing new donors to their cause. That can only be achieved by continuing to showcase their work and telling the world they exist. The Nielsen exercise reveals a sector with the wisdom to be bold in times of extremis.

Are You Being Bold This Autumn?

"Don't panic! I have no idea what this is yet." The Whatsapp message attached to an image of draft creative ideas that had us excited from the off. 
And so began the process that started in July and made it over the line in December. Not quite the late Summer launch we'd envisaged but holidays and work, and more work, and a bit more work, just meant it all hummed along pleasantly in the background for a while.
It feels right to log the launch of a website we're so proud of, and have put so much work into. But the point of this post is not to pat ourselves on the back, it's to celebrate the people who made it happen. 
It's a rare thing indeed to share a vision, one which is more of a feeling than an actual thing, only to see it made glorious reality in a first iteration. Dave Sedgwick of<a href="https://www.instagram.com/studiodbd/"> StudioDBD</a> did just that for us. How did he know what was in our heads when even we didn't, until he showed it to us? The man is not only a gifted designer, he always had an answer and made the process a joy.
This is being delightedly typed into the easiest CMS ever thanks to the brilliant, and patient, developer Maria Nery who morphed from freelance into employment mid build, but burnt the midnight oil to make sure we had our site when we needed it. 
Deeply chilled and talented photographer <a href="https://www.instagram.com/laurenquarmby/?hl=en">Lauren Quarmby</a> managed to take the pain out of being in front of a lens and delivered headshots we could bear to look at - result! 
Lastly, Copywriter <a href="https://www.trakellishill.co.uk/">Trak Ellis-Hill</a>, whose CV intimidated the bejeebers out of us, but who took us on and knocked us into shape in her unique and lovely way. All the good bits are hers.

Media Doing Good

It could be described as scribblings. It's a log of work in hand, it's a brain dump, it's a home for the random yet relevant. It’s a bit more of Root you might like to see.