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| BARNARDOS |
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Making a difference to every child in Ireland |
Agency:
Client:
Team:
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Cawley Nea TBWA
Barnardos
Aoibheann Goughran
Brian Swords
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INTRODUCTION
This case study highlights how a
hugely impactful advertising campaign
developed for Barnardos helped to
make a real difference to the future of
children in Ireland. The campaign was
designed to provoke debate, affect
policy and raise the profile of the
Barnardos charity. It achieved these
objectives above and beyond all
expectations. During the period of the
campaign Barnardos public awareness
jumped an unprecedented 55
percentage points (from 5% to 59%).
The campaign created huge media
debate across TV, radio and print, and
was hugely influential in gaining
political support at government level
for the Barnardos cause.
BACKGROUND
Barnardos is Ireland’s leading
children’s charity, working with over
12,000 children and families who face
barriers in reaching their full potential
such as poverty, abuse and neglect.
Barnardos’ mission is to see that all
children in Ireland are given the care,
support and opportunities they need
and deserve. In order to achieve this,
Barnardos needs to be top of mind in
the league of children’s charities.
Despite being Ireland’s largest
children’s charity, Barnardos found
themselves in the position where other
children’s charities, such as the ISPCC,
had a higher profile among Irish
consumers. Notwithstanding it’s
excellence in delivering its services at
grass roots level, Barnardos had
neglected to focus on raising the
profile of the charity over time. The
public’s awareness of Barnardos and
it’s role in tackling the key issues facing
children in Ireland was as low as 5% in
1999. Those who were aware of
Barnardos tended to associate it with
old-fashioned orphanages rather than
modern service centres that help
children and families cope with issues
such as poverty, abuse and neglect.
In circumstances where the charity
industry as a whole has become very
fragmented and noisy, Barnardos
found themselves competing not only
with other children’s charities, but
charities such as Trocaire and Concern
to name the most salient. Given that
the organisation depends on public
and private donations to provide its
services, and donations depend on
awareness, a communications strategy
was needed that would place
Barnardos top of mind among
children’s charities.
MARKETING OBJECTIVES & TASK
The Vision
Cawley Nea\TBWA was
commissioned to develop an
advertising campaign with the
following brief. Barnardos wanted an
advocacy campaign, one that would
promote debate around key issues
rather than eliciting a specific donation
response. This should also re-position
the organisation in people’s minds
alongside the major issues affecting
children in Ireland today. Simply put,
the advertising objectives were to
create a highly impactful & challenging
campaign that would:
1. Promote debate
2. Influence opinion leaders & policy
makers
3. Raise Barnardos profile and general
awareness
THE TARGET AUDIENCE & ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES
The campaign aimed to speak to
two separate but interlinked
audiences:
1. Policy makers and opinion leaders
2. Adults 30 - 60
The campaign would be designed to
provoke debate among the general
public and opinion leaders, thereby
putting pressure on decision makers to
formulate policy with a view to
improving children’s lives.
THE STRATEGIC SOLUTION
Identifying the Conventions of the
Marketplace
A competitive audit was conducted
which found that the conventions of
children’s charity advertising were very
much about showing the child in the
current high-risk situation and using
shock or tear-jerk tactics to illicit the
desired response from the consumer,
usually a call to donate. In order to
differentiate Barnardos from the rest
of the market, a disruptive idea was
required.
DIGGING FOR THE INSIGHT
The agency visited Barnardos service
centres around the country with the
aim of gaining an understanding of
the issues that face children in Ireland
today. In-depth interviews were held
with key figures within the
organisation – senior management,
fundraisers, front-line service centre
staff and, very importantly, the
children and families who come to
Barnardos’ service centres. It emerged
that the most salient issues were
deemed to be stress, alcohol/drug
abuse and poverty.
THE KEY INSIGHT
This strategic process led to a
powerful insight:
The experiences you have in
childhood stay with you through your
adult life.
This is a universal concept that
everyone can relate to and appreciate,
no matter what your childhood
circumstances. It was also the perfect
platform to allow Barnardos to talk
about its key issues – stress, alcohol
abuse and poverty.
THE CREATIVE IDEA
From this insight the advertising
campaign was born with the following
creative thought at its core:-
"Every childhood lasts a lifetime"
A suite of creative work was
developed around the three key issues,
with TV/Cinema, radio and outdoor
executions developed for each of the
three phases. The first, Parents Under
Pressure (Stress), demonstrated how
the pressures of modern life could
negatively affect the family. Then
Families Under the Influence (Alcohol)
highlighted the effects that alcohol
abuse has on children and families.
Finally, Children Living Without
(Poverty), examined how poverty
curtails the opportunities open to
young people.
The executions did not
employ shock-tactics, but instead were
creatively provocative. Creative
concepts were then tested with groups
of service centre users to ensure that
the issues facing them were
represented in a sensitive manner,
while remaining as impactful as
possible. It was important to
Barnardos not to alienate those who
come to them for support.
The creative technique was
extremely impactful and emotive. It
used a simple technique of playing a
child’s v/o over footage of adults
describing childhood memories to
dramatically illustrate how such
experiences stay with you though your
adult life.
The production budget was limited
to €50,000. Therefore Cawley
Nea\TBWA, enrolled the support of the
production company, actors and
various other third party companies in
donating their time to Barnardos. The
result was an outstanding & impactful
campaign that included three TV ads,
produced to a standard worth five
times their original investment, with
complimentary print and radio
executions.
THE COMMUICATION ACTIVITY
The task was to connect with the
target audiences on each of the three
issues, with maximum impact, on a
limited budget. Media partnerships
were entered into and generous deals
negotiated that would allow
Barnardos maximum cut-through for
minimum spend.
| MEDIA STRATEGY |
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| The media strategy consisted of three intensive bursts for each issue connected over a two-year period. The key media were TV, radio and outdoor. Media partnerships were leveraged, deals negotiated and discounts availed of. JC Decaux generously donated a large quantity of media space for the campaign. This all resulted in a campaign that was worth €700,000 for a media outlay of only €150,000. |
 TV & Radio Campaign Achievement |
THE RESULTS
The objectives of the Every Child
Matters campaign were three-fold – to
promote debate, influence policy
makers & opinion leaders and raise the
profile and awareness of Barnardos
among the general public.
- Promote Debate.
All three phases
of the campaign generated a wealth
of media coverage in national &
local press, trade magazines and on
national radio & television. Public
debate ensued, not only about the
campaign itself, but also about the
key issues of stress, poverty and
alcohol abuse.
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(a) Influence Policy Makers.
The
campaign gave Barnardos the
credible position of being able to
lobby and influence policy by
opening the doors to policy makers
in government, the opposition and
civil service. As a result of the
campaign...
a) Barnardos was appointed to the
Government Strategic Task Force
on Alcohol in March 2003.
b) All political parties signed a
pledge to put children’s policy
ahead of the alcohol industry.
c) Special editions of Childlinks
Magazine, focusing on stress,
alcohol and poverty, were
published by the
Children’s Resource Centre, one
of the key resources for decision
makers on children’s policy in
Ireland.
(b)Influence Opinion Leaders.
The
campaign also provoked personal
responses from all of the major
political parties and the Minister for
Children, Brian Lenihan -
"As Minister of Children may I
congratulate Barnardos for the
effective campaign it has begun on
the issue of alcohol abuse"
In addition, celebrity figures such as
Mary Coughlan and Don Baker
became spokespeople for Barnardos
on the issues of alcohol abuse and
domestic violence.
- Raise Barnardos Profile & Awareness among the General
Public.
Market Research Company Catalyst carried out Pre and Post Campaign quantitative research for all three phases of the advertising campaign.
See Public Awareness Chart: |
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The following graph illustrates how
the three phases of the campaign have
consistently built awareness for
Barnardos over time, from 5% to 59%.
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Parents Under Pressure |
Families Under the Influence |
Children Living Without |
| Research Timing |
Pre - March 2002
Post - April 2002 |
Pre - Jan 2003
Post - Feb 2003 |
Pre - July 2003
Post - Sept 2003
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Unprompted recall of advertising for children's charities - % of respondents who mentioned Barnardos
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Pre: 5%
Post: 36% |
Pre: 12%
Post: 47% |
Pre: 31%
Post: 59% |
| Recall of 'Every Childhood Lasts a Lifetime' endline |
Pre: n/a
Post: 44%
Of these, 72% specified Barnardos |
Pre: n/a
Post: 34%
Of these, 71% specified Barnardos |
Pre: n/a
Post: 44%
Of these, 81% specified Barnardos |
| Prompted recall of Poster campaign |
58% |
69% |
63%
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| Prompted recall of TV campaign |
59% |
62% |
64%
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| This campaign would encourage me to donate to Barnardos |
67% |
55% |
75% |
In addition, despite being an
advocacy campaign as opposed to a
donation generating campaign, each
phase had an impact on the propensity
of people to donate to Barnardos,
increasing this figure to an incredible
75% of people surveyed (see Fig.3)
UNEXPECTED RESULTS
Barnardos won several Creative
Awards for the Every Child Matters
campaign:
ICAD 2002 Silver Bell for Campaign
ICAD 2002 Silver Bell for 'Parents Under Pressure'
ICAD 2002 Bronze Bell for 'Families Under the
Influence'
ICAD 2002 Bronze Bell for 'Children Living Without'
Aer Rianta Do Good Work 2003.
(Winner of 3 months free media space in Dublin
Airport)
THE LOGO
Such is the strength of the creative
thought "Every Childhood Lasts a
Lifetime" that it has now been
integrated into the official Barnardos
Ireland logo:
"The advertising campaign has made a
major contribution towards moving
Barnardos into a position of
considerable influence on policy
matters in the domain of children,
giving a strong platform to make real
differences in the lives of the children
of Ireland now and in the future"
Owen Keenan, Chief Executive, Barnardos
SUMMARY
In 1999 Barnardos was an
organisation with the need to
dramatically increase its public profile
in the charity industry and align itself
with the key issues that effect children
in Ireland today - stress, alcohol abuse
and poverty. A campaign was required
that would provoke debate among the
opinion leaders and policy makers
around these issues, thereby shifting
Barnardos to the credible position of
being able to affect policy, while
dramatically raising the profile of the
charity among the public.
The creative idea, “Every Childhood
Lasts a Lifetime”, resulted in an award
winning campaign that achieved these
objectives beyond all expectations.
The campaign created massive media
debate across all media and was
directly influential in gaining political
support at government level. As a
result, Barnardos was appointed to the
Government Strategic Task Force on
Alcohol, and all political parties have
taken Barnardos pledge regarding
children’s policy in Ireland.
Throughout all phases of the
campaign, advertising recall has been
consistently high, between 58 - 69%
and resulting in public awareness of
Barnardos jumping an unprecedented
55 percentage points, from 5% to
59%. The campaign has enabled
Barnardos to make a real difference to
the future of Irish children.
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