Age UK and its “Our Power is Our Number “campaign.

I thought it only fair that having been nasty to Age UK that I should analyse the content of their press release that launched their new campaign.

So what does Age UK see as its purpose in life – to:

• Deliver information and advice
• Provide practical services to help people stay independent at home
• Tackle isolation and sustain good health
• Operate in the UK and globally
• Campaign for changes in legislation, policy and practice that will bring a better later life
• Challenge attitudes and address market failures with age-friendly products

The Our Power is Our Number campaign is based on the fact that people aged over 55 will cast 4 out out of every 10 votes and that ‘grey’ majorities are likely in 94 marginal seats.
What policy areas will the campaign focus upon, what is the Age UK manifesto? Politicians should:

• Reform the failing social care system
• Improve pensions
• Axe ageism and ending forced retirement
• Make the NHS fit for later life
• Enable older people to play a greater role in society

This is the campaign web site


When formulating this campaign, Age UK would have been forced to ask itself three fundamental questions.  Their answers are very revealing.

Should campaign on a single or multiple issues? Answer = Multiple
Should you campaign for measureable outcomes Answer = No
Are the demands likely to be met in this period of dire economic conditions Answer = No

I think Age UK have “missed a trick” that might have amplified its voice.

The boring way that all sectional groups approach elections is to put a boundary around their own interests and only worry about them. The group that shouts the loudest or who threatens the most gets heard although not necessarily acted upon.

All of the research I have seen suggests that older people are concerned for themselves but they are even more concerned about their kids and grandchildren.

I wonder if there wasn’t the opportunity to step outside the box and say something like this to politicians: “Prove to us that you are fit to manage the NHS”. To Labour you have had 13 years in charge and have made a complete mess of it. To the Conservatives: “Convince us that you are not as bad as Labour.”

Basically, an age-neutral rather than an age-silo campaign. You would need the research and the spokespeople to cut through the usual platitudes that politicans serve up to such qusetions. Yep, I know it is an unusual approach but you know what they say: “Who dares wins.” Dick Stroud

Age UK logo and marketing message

Yesterday I had a call from Marketing Magazine about the new Age UK ad campaign.

Before talking about that I thought I had better catch-up with the news and say something about the new logo.

This is a paraphrase of the press release.

'Life loop' is the branding choice of charity formed by the merger of Help the Aged and Age Concern and is appearing on the websites of Age Concern England and Help the Aged. UK.

It was designed by branding agency Corporate Edge . My last musing about the new name can be found here.

"It shows life in the round," said a spokeswoman. "Not a straight line that starts with young and ends with old, but a loop of vitality, a circle of life. It represents the continuous, seamless support that Age UK offers."

So there you are.

This brings me back to the new ad campaign that is reported in today’s Marketing with the image of the older lady.


Here is the press blurb:

The “Our power is our number” ad drive is the first campaign the charity has launched since unveiling its new identity, and is part of a wider effort to build awareness of the new brand and the services the organisation offers to older consumers. The campaign launches on 5 April and includes television and print advertising and a direct mail drive to 2.5 million people.

Age UK works with creative agencies Karmarama and Kittcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw, digital agency Agency.com and media agency Manning Gottlieb OMD. These are all heavy hitters.

My reaction to the campaign was this quote.

“The election is an obvious issue [for Age UK] to build a campaign around because of the propensity of older people to vote”, but he says the strapline veers towards a “threatening tone” without describing Age UK’s role.

Often when you make a quick remarket to a journalist you wish you had kept your mouth shut. In this case I stick with my comment.

It was clear that the journalist wasn’t too sure what Age UK did or was ‘for’. I know about the great work that Age Concern does at a local level but I am still very hazy about its main purpose in life. I would be the first to admit that this is my fault but I suspect I am not alone.

It is very easy to write a blog and criticise but I do think there is a fundamental issue of communicating the new organisation’s purpose. I am not sure if “Our Power is Our Number” is going to make things much better.

Here is the Age UK manifesto.


Dick Stroud

Large charities, be worried, be very worried

Like most things in life, economic problems take longer to develop than you think. The horrible economic conditions that are about to engulf large UK charities have been brewing for a couple of years and may still have another 12 months before they really start crashes over their heads


The head of the Charity Commission reckons that the trustees of large charities that are heavily reliant on public sector funding must take measures to avoid finding themselves on a "financial cliff edge" when the current spending round ends.

This is also a warning for all of the agency, support and consultancy organisations that depend on business coming from the charity, government and quango area. Times are going to get tough.

If large dollops of public spending aren't t going to pay the bills then who will? The corporate sector – I think not.

The consumer – maybe, if you have a compelling proposition that is formulated in simple language rather than the bureaucratic gobbledygook that most of these guys speak.

What part of the consumer audience? Methinks most likely the older consumer.

The smart charities will take this onboard and start to reorientate their strategy now rather than when the bailiffs start knocking on the door. Dick Stroud

The Charity Brand Index

In the past couple of weeks I have been writing a lot about charities and how they are faring in these troubled times.

This is the first time I have come upon the “Charity Brand Index” that is produced by PRWeek and Third Sector, in association with Harris Interactive.

It bills itself as a comprehensive assessment of the Top 100 UK charity brands based on a survey of more than 3,000 members of the public.

The index attempts to measure things like:
• Recognition of the charity
• Willingness to donate
• Attitudes towards their cause
• Trust
• Effectiveness of media relations and advertising
• Understanding of their work

These are all important factors so if you have £1,200 in your budget you can learn why The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain receive 10 points compared to Macmillan Cancer Support that received 350.

The trouble with these types of scoring systems is that they take no account for the relative size of the charities. So whilst the recognition of Macmillan is clearly zillions times higher than The Watch Tower, it is wrong to also make a judgement about the effectiveness of their media relations and advertising.

I guess what this type of study provides is the mechanism for marketers to be judged on their performance (i.e. have they increased or decreased their ranking year on year). It also guarantees that you buy next year's edition. Dick Stroud

Desperate days for UK charities

If charities ever needed to be smart at marketing it is now, as they face a double whammy of bad news.

Whammy 1 – The postal strike

According to the Institute of Fundraising charities are likely to lose millions in income if the postal strikes continue into the Christmas period.

The report says that a number of areas are affected by the mail strike, which is based on a detailed survey of eight members of the institute. The areas include membership subscriptions, general donations, regular trust and corporate donations, fundraising events and the trading of Christmas cards and Christmas catalogues.

For some charities the potential losses are expected to be in £millions. If there is a backlog in the postal system, people will receive a large amount of mail when the strike is over and may be less likely to read and respond to appeals.

Whammy 2 – The recession begins to bite

The worst effects of the recession are yet to come for charities, commentators have warned after a turbulent few weeks in the voluntary sector.

Major aid agencies are among the latest to make large job cuts, and in September the UK Giving Survey showed individual donations had fallen by 11% in 2008/09.

Senior charity figures believe the recession is beginning to bite. The chair of the Charity Finance Directors' Group says the fortunes of charities are a lagging indicator of the state of the economy. He predicts that government spending on charities would be cut by up to 17% over the next five years. Another industry pundit says: "the nice decade of growing public funding and generous government capacity-building is coming to a close, and a new era of public sector cuts and smarter capacity-building beckons."

So charity marketers your challenge is to do a lot more with less. Above all you need to be very clear about your target contributors and how to reach them. Without doubt older people should be featuring high on your list of targets. Do you understand how the recession has changed their behaviours and drivers, both financially and emotionally? Are your pre-recession marketing strategies still relevant? I hope you have got some good answers to these questions. Dick Stroud

Oldies dominate online charitable giving

A spokesman for JustGiving, leading online platform for charity giving, said 25% of the funds raised on the site were from people aged 45 and over who gave more than £50.

He said a further 33% cent of revenue was from donors aged 55 and over. Also, it would be wrong to assume that younger donors were used to giving online, he said, because for 45% of 18 to 24-year-olds, their JustGiving donation was the first time they had used the internet to donate to charity.

The message is clear: "Ignore your older donors online at your peril. People aged between 17 and 24 make up only 7% of the site’s revenue, and people over 65 counts for 11%.

He went on to say:” It’s easy to get carried away with the ‘new breed' of online donors, because their contribution is important. But charities shouldn't forget about the ‘old breed' too," he said.
Having used the JustGiving web site I can vouch that it is extremely good.

Another bit of proof, as if any is needed, about the importance of the online 50-plus, 60-plus and 70-plus. Dick Stroud

The gripes and groans of Age Concern / Help the Aged reorganisation

Having lived through a couple of mergers I am not in the least surprised to read that a couple of the local Age Concern charities are having doubts about joining the soon to be merged Age Concern and Help the Aged.

One member of a local Age Concern groups said he wasn’t clear whether Age UK was more interested in selling products or becoming "a charity dedicated to helping vulnerable older people. Age UK seems to be worrying more about Pantone colours and font size than about its basic aims and purpose."

I know absolutely nothing about what is happening in the charity with regard to its merger and how its relationships to the local organisations. All I do know is that it you have to have saintly qualities not to upset some of the people during the time of major organisational upheaval.

Maybe the centre hasn’t been as good as it should at communicating its messages – maybe the regional organisations are being intransigent to any form of change. I suspect a bit of both.

I wish the whole organisation well, heavens knows we need the services it provides. My only word of advice is that the process appears to be taking forever. Something I know for a fact - the longer it goes on the more people gripe (with reason or not). My advice would be to get a move on. Dick Stroud

'Agenda' no longer on the agenda for merged age charities

What a difference a week can make. On the 21st October I wrote that it looked likely that amalgamation between Help the Aged and Age Concern would result in a new charity called Agenda.

Today a spokesman for the charity said: "We are now finalising our new brand name after consultation with our partners and older people - as yet there is no final decision, but we have rule out Agenda as a name for the organisation."

I can only assume the response from the partners and older peeople to the name wasn’t that good.

This is the trouble once you start searching around for a new name. One thing you can be certain is that you will antagonise a lot of people. Either they don’t like the name, don’t see why a new name was necessary and/or are horrified by the costs.

Message to the Marketing Manager at Agenda/Age Concern/Help the Aged you have my sympathy.Dick Stroud

Charities giving by the 50-plus is vitally important

As the chart shows, unless charities capture the older giver they are toast.

If you are in the Charity Business then this is a must read analysis of who gives - more importantly who does not.

The ‘high roller’ givers constitute a disproportionate amount of total giving. This research suggests that those aged 65 and over are most likely to be higher-level donors (10%), followed by 45-64 year olds (9%), 25-44 year olds (7%) and 16-24 years olds (2%).

The research I conducted with Mature Marketing showed that 50% of the 50-plus had reduced their charitable giving by an average of 50%. Worse still, if you don’t keep this group as regular givers you are likely to miss out on their legacy payments.

Number one priority for the charities is to make sure their marketing to the older age group has adapted to the changed behaviour created by the recession. My bet is that most of them have yet to get the message. Watch out for redundancies and mergers as charities fight to keep going. And this is all before we see the swinging reductions in public expenditure.

Rough times ahead in the Charities Sector. Dick Stroud

Business opportunities in the Care Industry

A UK care charity, providing care homes for the elderly, is the first British charity to attempt the takeover over a listed company.

Housing 21 (the charity) is preparing a share offer to buy Claimar Care, the heavily indebted care services provider. Like a lot of care companies, Claimar was suckered during the crazy period, prior to the credit crunch, when it appeared that credit lines were infinite. It now finds itself wallowing in over £21 million of debt. There are a lot of Claimars around.

So here we have a boring old charity taking over a listed company.

The Care Industry is ripe for more of these acquisitions as the pressure on public spending screws the amounts of funding local authorities can pay for elder care.

Look at this story that shows how local authorities are itching to cut expenditure on care services. This is going to put severe pressure on the business models of the care companies. Dick Stroud

Closure on the Heyday disaster

Every time I say: “that’s the last time I write anything about Heyday” something else emerges that warrants a blog posting.

This time it is the publication of a report by Sir Christopher Kelly (The chairman of the NSPCC and of the Committee on Standards in Public Life) and was written at the behest of Age Concern. Well done Age Concern for wanting to get all of the mess out into the open.

This report should/must be mandatory reading for any management team intending to have a punt at the 50-plus market. I squirmed as I read it.

Here are a few quotes from Sir Christopher Kelly:

"A classic case study of what not to do if you want an organisation to succeed".

"There was a significant failure of governance", and Heyday was "planned and implemented in a way that was almost bound to fail".

"Heyday was a high-profile programme by a major charity that went disastrously wrong and ended up costing the charity significant amounts of money," said Kelly. "Not to account for that in an intelligible way to their own members and supporters, still less the wider public, seems to me to be untenable."

He was "struck by an element of defensiveness in the ACE culture, and by what I see as an unwillingness on the part of some, until very recently, to face up to the reality of what happened with Heyday".

"There was a strong element of wishful thinking in the charity's approach" and "some of those concerned became carried away with the strength of the vision". There were "potentially important lessons here for other charities" to learn, he added.

For the first time, it is possible to see a detailed breakdown of the £22m losses incurred by Age Concern that includes £6.7m on an IT system commissioned from IBM that did not work properly and £7.3m on employing staff.

I am ashamed of that my ex-employer was involved in this mess. It must have been clear that the Heyday staff didn't have a clue about IT but IBM kept sending the invoices.

What a nightmare. Being able to say: “told you so” gives me absolutely no pleasure. Dick Stroud

Age Concern / Help the Aged in the news

Older people feel their lives are getting worse according to a new report from Age Concern and Help the Aged. One in four older people in the UK admit their quality of life has deteriorated in the last 12 months. A further two thirds of people, aged 65 and over, say their lives have not improved at all.

Unfortunately I cannot get the report to download to look in detail at the research. You might have more success.

It is not only older people who feel their lives are getting worse. Today the charity announced that it is shedding 300 jobs in an attempt to save £10 million. Clearly the repercussions of the Heyday disaster are still swilling around. Sad news. Dick Stroud

Merging age charities appoint new head of marketing

As I have discussed a number of times, the UK’s two age charities are merging. A lot of people would say:“about time.

Would the new head of marketing be an outsider – somebody from Age Concern or from Help the Aged? Now we know. Amanda Ball, currently Help the Aged director of fund-raising and marketing, has been appointed to the position of group marketing director for the new charity.

As you would expect she will report to the new ceo.

She must have a very long “to do list”. We know that it includes:
1. The development of the new brand for the new organisation
2. Devising and implementing an income generation strategy
3. Developing a new offline and online marketing strategy

Phew...

One thing is for sure. There hasn’t been a time, in the history of either of the charities, when their work will be in more demand than now. I really do wish her the very best of luck. Dick Stroud

Tourism one day – old people the next.

Tom Wright, who was chief executive of tourism agency VisitBritain, is the man chosen to head up the new charitable group formed from the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged. He is expected to take up his position early next year, to allow the tourist group time to find a replacement. The experience he gained in merging the British Tourist Authority with the English Tourism Council, to form VisitBritain, should stand him in good stead for the task ahead.

I am very impressed with the people I have recently met from Help the Aged. The Engage Business network they have established looks to be getting some real traction.

It will be fascinating to see how the commercial groups in the charities are fused into a single business.

I have already written about the chairman of the new charity. The combination of the new ceo and chairman will make an impressive team. Dick Stroud

The Children's Society targets older donors

This charity is trialling a multi-channel appeal targeting the 50-plus. It has chosen the the West Midlands region of the UK (Birmingham) as a test area before taking it to other parts of the UK.

The appeal goes live next week and will integrate direct mail, press ads, inserts and an online microsite.

Focusing on a local geography is an interesting approach. The aim is to recruit people as “Community Sponsors”. The charity’s head of direct marketing said: "The concept of Community Sponsorship sets us apart from other children's charities as we focus on very localised issues and tap into the audience's desire to rekindle a genuine sense of community."

Sounds a smart idea. I would be fascinated to hear how it goes. Dick Stroud

Merged age charity appoints chair

Dianne Jeffrey has been appointed chair of the charity that will be formed from the merger of Help the Aged and Age Concern England. This is excellent news.

As anybody who regularly reads my blog will know, I have been extremely critical of Age Concern’s recent commercial ventures– especially the Heyday disaster.
I don’t know Dianne very well but I think she is just what this merger of the two charities requires.

Marketers in the US have AARP, which is a useful conduit for engaging with the older market. Let's hope the UK gets something as good. Dick Stroud

“Giving something back” post work – mixed messages

I would like to thank Tom Troland for sending me this item from the New York Times. Tom has also sent me some fascinating research from McKinsey that I will be covering in the next couple of weeks.

The NYT article is titled: “Geezers Doing Good “and relates to how some people, from the examples in the article, mainly the wealthy and highly educated, are doing a “Bill Gates” and starting a new full-time career of doing “good works".

Things seem to be different in Europe. I have already written about the difficulty in getting boomer aged people to volunteer/give and now Martijn de Haas has sent me a translated item from some Dutch research – thanks Martijn.

This research was done by Movisie, an organisation for social development.

In their factsheet 'Social commitment from the elderly' it shows that the time spent volunteering by 65-plussers has decreased from an average of 2.2 hour per week to 1.8 hour.

Older people have always been the biggest suppliers of unpaid work. One out of three people aged between 55 and the 74 years deliver a voluntary contribution of an average of six hours per week on social and society work. The research concludes that seniors have increasingly become busier with paid work, watching grandchildren, caring for family members, social activities, and hobbies and watching television.

It is to be expected that the baby boomers will spend less and less time on volunteering in the future.

I am not sure if this is a European/US difference or is a difference between the very rich/not so rich. I suspect that later.

Looks like organisations reliant on the contributions (both cash and time) from older people are going to have to come up with some innovative ideas. Maybe one idea is to pursue a wealthy boomer benefactor? Dick Stroud

Speaking legacy language

Five big UK charities (The National Trust, Barnardo’s, The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, Save the Children and World Vision) are working with an agency (TDA) to explore the effectiveness of the different types of message used in legacy marketing materials. What a good idea. Hopefully the spondolicks that TDA makes out of the contract will enable it to have a re-think about its web site.

The head honcho of legacies at the National Trust says: “One of the areas we’re keen to understand better is how we should speak to legacy prospects – what tone of voice should we use and how do we cover family issues.”

In a boomer focus group conducted by another agency (DMS) it found that vague phrases such as “after you are gone” were off-putting and open to interpretation by potential donors. Very direct phrases such as “after your death” or “after you have died” were the best received. The term “When you have passed away” was also liked as people saw it as being very direct but also compassionate.
This got me thinking about other terms that TDA might want to test. How about:

“Popped your clogs”
“Pegged it”
“Gone to meet the grim reaper”
“Fallen off the perch”

Does anybody else have ideas about attention grabbing terminology that might be appropriate? Dick Stroud

Boomers and charitable giving

I recently received a very useful research report (Boom or Bust) from an agency called dms (part of the same group as Millennium) about the challenges of fund raising from the Boomer Generation. The big, big challenge for charities is how to fill the gap when the 70+ giver stops giving.

If you contact the company I am sure they would be delighted to send you a copy. Dick Stroud

Age charities consult over merger – it must be spring

Life always looks better when the first Swallows return and start nesting. It marks the start of a great time of the year. Help the Aged and Age Concern discuss the possibilities of merging with the same regularity. These machinations are not so appealing.

No doubt there will be numerous meetings, PowerPoint by the bucket load and lots of dosh for consultants and accountants.

This time it looks like it really will happen. According to ThirdSector (you will have to complete the free sign-up to read the article)

The charities are also starting the final stages of the due-diligence process and have said they will also consider starting the process to appoint a new chair and board.

“Spending time and energy operating separately no longer makes sense,” said Catherine McLoughlin, chair of Age Concern England. “Instead, we intend to pool our talents and resources to ensure older people’s needs receive the even greater focus they deserve.”

Jo Connell, chair of Help the Aged, said there had “never been a greater need for such an organisation”.

“The demands of an ageing society mean that this in-principle decision – which has been taken collaboratively and in partnership – is the right one for older people today and tomorrow.”

A final decision over whether the organisations will merge will be taken in September.

Why will it be different this year? Forget the rationalization about ageing population etc it is all to do with the Age Concern’s Heyday disaster.

I am not going to bore you with the details (search the blog for lots of posts). The sorry tale gets even sorrier. I have just learnt that the guy who was involved in the first Heyday business plan, left the charity with a £815,000 payment.

The more I look at this mess the more disgusted I become. Dick Stroud. PS - If you are a branding consultancy I would contact the these companies because as sure as eggs are eggs they will be spending a pile on the new brand identity.

Charities face an interesting few years

Yesterday Oxfam announced that it had appointed an agency to develop its legacy marketing to the Baby Boomers (whoever they are).

Charities and all types of organisations that depend on volunteers face an interesting period. On one hand they have loads of older people reaching the age that has historically been associated with ‘giving’ - on the other hand the new-old may not be destined to follow their parent’s generation in giving their time and money.

This is a subject I will be commenting about a lot more. Dick Stroud

Cancer Research targets over-50s in legacy push

Cancer Research is the UK’s largest charity dedicated to researching cancer. The press and radio campaign, created by WWAV Rapp Collins, carries the phrase "We will", with the call to action to contact the charity by either coupon, phone or online.

A key focus of the campaign is the over-50s audience. The media choice includes Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping and Saga, as well as radio stations Magic, Smooth FM and Classic FM. All good standard 50-plus stuff.

I will keep my eye on this campaign and post copies of the creative. Later in the year I am talking at a Legacy fund raising conference so this will make an interesting real-time case study. Dick Stroud

Let’s hope Help the Aged really is intune with the market

Help The Aged is to sell home insurance and other financial products to the "grey market".
The charity is to set up a financial services arm, Intune, selling insurance products (e.g. travel, home and motor insurance)

The charity hopes the £5m venture with insurer Liverpool Victoria will aim to be profitable within three years.

"Many companies are guilty of lumping the over 50s into one amorphous 'grey' market and being inflexible or discriminatory with their products and services," said Anne Grahamslaw, Intune's managing director. You cannot argue with that!

Well Intune has been fortunate in having a real life case study of how not to appeal to the 50-plus market, with the Heyday disaster, so let’s hope it has learnt some of the lessons.

I just wonder if mixing charities with commercial ventures is fundamentally flawed. Time will tell. Dick Stroud

A grant for nonprofit organisations

My chums at Immersion Active have come up with an interesting offer.

The company has established the first Internet marketing grant for nonprofit organizations targeting mature consumers. Immersion Active will award one organization with a year long commitment to their strategic Internet marketing plan. If you want to apply you need to get moving since the deadline for applications is June 1.

The grant will allow one organization to collaborate with Immersion Active on things like: establishing a strategic Internet marketing plan; redesigning the organization's identity and redesigning of the website.

For more information, and to access to access a grant form. Dick Stroud