Amnesty to launch its first direct response TV campaign
Howard Lake | 27 November 2002 | News
Amnesty International UK, previously banned from advertising on TV in the UK as an “unfit” organisation, is to launch its first direct response TV campaign.
Amnesty International was banned from using television under the Broadcasting Act of 1990 which governed advertising by ‘political’ organisations. The human rights organisation successfully overturned this ban in 1997, but is only now using TV for the first time.
With 240,000 supporters and an active donor recruitment programme, television has been identified by Amnesty International as offering the potential to raise awareness of its already powerful brand and to recruit new supporters.
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While Amnesty has worked with various direct marketing agencies, it ran a separate pitch for its TV account. The contract to implement the campaign was won by creative agency Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw after a five-way pitch.
Amnesty International UK supporter recruitment manager Joel Voysey said: “We wanted to find an agency with the right kind of experience to take us on to TV. It would be easy to make a controversial or sensational ad, but we wanted one that would succeed in attracting new supporters. We chose Kitcatt Nohr principally because of their creative strength, but also because we feel that they understand how to get the best out of the medium in a responsive way.”
The campaign will seek to recruit 14,000 new donors in the UK, and focus on securing regular monthly gifts.
The campaign will launch in the New Year.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.