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| IBTS |
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Blood is thicker than water |
Agency:
Client:
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Irish International BBDO
Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) |
| Team: |
John Keating
Rachel Haslam
Barry Dooley
Adrian Dowling
Damian Hanley
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INTRODUCTION
The IBTS has managed to safeguard
Ireland’s self-sufficiency in blood whilst
simultaneously taking the necessary
steps to make the Irish blood supply
one of the safest in the world. What
makes this case study compelling is not
just the size of the advertising task on
a limited budget in difficult times, it is
the fact that the IBTS had no
marketing communications tool at its
disposal other than advertising to drive
donations.
BACKGROUND
From February 1994 the IBTS was
subjected to perhaps one of the most
protracted periods of adverse publicity
ever faced by an Irish service provider.
By the middle of 2001 the IBTS found
itself in an unenviable position. Its
corporate reputation had suffered
serious damage. Moreover, it had to
introduce a precautionary vCJD safety
measure that had the effect of
reducing the number of eligible donors
by 12%. If blood supply fell short of
demand, elective surgery would have
to be postponed to facilitate
emergency transfusions. The efficient
functioning of the whole Irish hospital
system was under threat.
MARKETING OBJECTIVES
The IBTS set an objective of
increasing Irish blood donations by
12%, staggered as evenly as possible
throughout the year. They set out to
do this in a way that would reposition
the IBTS as a caring and progressive
organisation that Irish people can
trust.
THE TASK
At a time when there had never
been fewer Irish people either
available or willing to donate, Irish
International BBDO were tasked with
increasing blood donations by 12% on
an ongoing basis and with
rehabilitating the public image of the
IBTS.
| THE START POINT |
A Lansdowne quantitative study commissioned by IBTS in 1999 and 2001 revealed that, while over 70% of people were aware that donating blood can save lives, and 60% believed that they were eligible to donate, only 31% of Irish people had ever donated. So, what was stopping them?
Clearly, the most common reason
for people not donating
blood was ‘fear’ – fear of needles (16%), fear of weakness
|
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| (8%), fear of finding out bad news about their health (3%) and fear of contracting an infectious disease (10%). Most of these fears were based on mis-information or lack of information. |
These fears, while unfounded, were
growing rather than subsiding. When
we compared the 2001 statistics with
those found in 1999, we could see that
bad publicity as a reason had almost
doubled from 4% to 7%. Allied to this,
the belief that donating blood ‘is not
safe for you’ has also doubled from 5%
to 10%.
Finally, interrogation of the ‘low
awareness’ reason for non-donation
revealed that this related, not to
unawareness of the need for blood
donation, but to lack of understanding
of the urgency for them personally to
donate. What was required was not an ‘awareness’ campaign, but a ‘call to
action’, one that would dramatically
increase the perceived personal
relevance of blood donation and
increase the perceived urgency of
acting on good intentions.
THE STRATEGIC SOLUTION
65% of those questioned by
Lansdowne said they would be
encouraged to give blood on a ‘friend,
relative or myself’ basis, either if a
friend or relative needed blood, if a
friend or relative asked them or if they
were having an operation themselves.
The Irish International team
concluded that the advertising had to
work in a more direct and intimate
way if it was going to elicit the
response we needed.
The strategic solution was to ‘bring
home’ the ongoing necessity of blood
donation in terms of both personal
responsibility for the act and the
personal implications of the act.
The key message was: ‘It is up to
you to make a difference to the lives
of people who matter to you’
We also wanted to highlight the
fact that one in four people in Ireland
will need a blood transfusion at some
point in their lives. This would
demonstrate to people the chances of
them knowing someone who needed a
donation or of them needing one
themselves.
THE CREATIVE IDEA
Dramatise the personal imperative
to donate blood.
RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING
In 2002 the ‘Excuses’ TV and radio
creative route used quotes from blood
transfusion patients in hospital to
suggest the triviality of the excuses
normally given by non-donors when
compared with the gravity of serious
illness. Similar quotes were used to re-enforce
the TV executions on
commuter, bus and train cards.
In 2003, we re-ran the ‘Excuses’ TV
but decided to refresh the creative
message in other media, namely
outdoor, press and radio. The new
creative route dramatised the times
when we all want to help our friends
or family recover from an accident or
illness and suggested that donating
blood was the most useful thing we
could do for them.
MOBILE CLINIC ADVERTISING
We used regional radio and press to
announce the arrival of a mobile clinic
in a particular area but added a harder
edge by including a strong call to
action that tied in with the ‘personal
imperative’ tone of the recruitment
campaign. An ambient advertising
campaign based on car stickers was
also developed to drive home the
ongoing imperative to donate.
THE RESULTS
The IBTS met the national demand
for blood on a monthly basis between
January 2002 to date without any
elective surgery being cancelled and
without any blood being imported.
They did this despite a 12% reduction
in the base of available donors from
April 2001 and a further 5% reduction
in the same base from May 2004. In
these charts, ‘est. bled’ is national
demand for blood, while ‘actual bled’
is national supply.
The IBTS believe that advertising
activity tends to correlate directly with
donation levels. They also note the
extent to which the IBTS advertising
has managed to positively influence its
media coverage in Ireland. In May 2004
positive press coverage increased
donation levels to the point where the
IBTS reduced its planned advertising
spend for three months, testimony to
the work done to reposition the IBTS
in the eyes of key influencers of public
opinion.
PAYBACK OR RETURN ON
INVESTMENT
The IBTS is unique in the sense that
its ROI has to be measured in a
different way to any other business
organisation. The effectiveness of its
communications spend is based on
maximising the safety and continuity
of the Irish blood supply to those
whose lives depend on it at minimum
cost.
The IBTS spent €334k in 2002, €468k in 2003 and is planning to
spend €625k in 2004 (The figure for
this year includes an allocation of €45k
for vCJD and a reserve of €30k). Based
on total donation levels, the IBTS
estimate the media investment cost of
each donation procured at an average
of €3. Relative to the cost of many
other commodities in ‘Rip Off Ireland’,
and given that importing blood is not
an option (in terms of safety or cost),
this represents remarkable value for
money.
SUMMARY
Maintaining the blood supply is no
ordinary public service. If blood is not
available on the day it is required,
surgery cannot be carried out. Yet,
blood donation is entirely voluntary. It
offers no material reward or personal
recognition and in the last two years
the IBTS has had to restrict its pool of
available donors in the most difficult
of circumstances.
Media advertising has been the only
marketing communications tool used
by the IBTS to safeguard the continuity
of the blood supply. There is a direct
correlation between blood donation
levels and media advertising, which has
also helped rehabilitate the IBTS in the
eyes of the Irish public.
All this has been achieved on a
limited budget that places the average
media cost of each donation at only €3.
Advertising has been put to many
uses in its history, some noble, some
less so. Rarely has it been pressed into
service in a cause so immediate, so
pervasive (one in four of us will need a
blood transfusion in our lifetime), so
demanding and so vital.
The IBTS advertising campaign has
helped to ensure that more Irish
people realise they are closer than they
think to saving a life.
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