I’ve noticed some great and inspiring charity campaigns in my career. One of those campaigns that made an impact on the net and also across loads of brands is back in 2015 through the Blood Awareness Week. Both the NHS and the Transplant brands persuaded many other brands to remove their letters off of their logos or company names.
‘A’, ‘O’ and ‘B’ are the blood types (Rhesus factor) that are used to identify blood for blood banks. In an inspired move brands that were asked, actioned the removal of these letters.
Nando’s removed A and their O in their name whilst Cadbury Dairy Milk removed A and B.
This went viral and raised awareness across the country. It boosted the number of people going to give blood (I give blood as much as I can). Not just UK brands caught wind of this, the British Red Cross also used this campaign asking large companies within the US to follow suit – they delivered too. Huge companies like Microsoft and Google used their public image to support this worthy cause.
I thought it was inspiring and tugs at the heartstrings. Plus it’s so good to see big-name brands helping a cause that truly saves lives. It is just amazing to get people to stop and listen.
More recently, Cadbury has joined in supporting causes with Age UK and have come together to fight the pandemic of loneliness that our elderly people are facing. There are less than 1.5 million elderly people who are struggling with a form of loneliness. What’s even worse, approximately a quarter of a million older citizens go without communication with someone for an entire week.
To make awareness of this Age UK and the help of Cadbury (my favourite chocolate) will be proudly working together to stop loneliness in our older people and to make awareness telling the British people that they can do something.
This campaign has already built up some momentum. Today when I walked into my local Sainsbury’s I stopped and took a closer look at what they have done to their famous ‘Glass and a half’ Dairy Milk bar.
They have simply kept the two glasses of milk pouring down their famous colour purple packaging. No branding on the front – clever as I recognised it right away from their strong identity, but it all feels so lonely – which is the point.
On the box it’s accompanied by it reads “We’ve donated the words from these Cadbury Dairy Milk bars to help the 225,000 older people who regularly go a whole week without speaking to anyone”. This is some powerful marketing and what a way to do it. Yes, I don’t like to share my chocolate bar, but I think I will be doing that now with someone vulnerable; suffering from loneliness. What’s more, for every bar they sell, 30p will go to Age UK.
I think it’s a bold move and from this, I think it’s a genuinely clever idea for people to get talking to one another again. A great charity cause to be apart of don’t you think?
For me the only issue is that the donation part of the box that these bars sit in, isn’t quite large enough – really need to say a little more. However overall – lovely!
So the campaign is here ‘Donate Your Words’ which I feel is both strong and a very clever way of saying – ‘talk to people and make them feel wanted and loved once again not just once a week but every day.’
There is more to come on the 4th of September, so please do visit https://www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/donate-your-words/ to check out what they have in store for us. Can’t wait!
At Fifteen we’re always on the lookout for new and interesting marketing strategies. Whether digital or print, we love looking for something a little bit different. If you’d like to shake things up and try a strategy that will rock your world, contact us today. We can’t wait to hear what your brand can bring to the table.