Analysis of legacy adverts 'deeply disappointing'
Howard Lake | 2 October 2009 | News
Advertising and marketing consultant Andrew Papworth has analysed 18 fundraising adverts in a recent legacies supplement in The Daily Telegraph and was "deeply disappointed by most of them".
Writing in the new edition of Harvest, his free charity marketing newsletter, he said: "For entirely understandable reasons, many of the charities felt they could only afford a tiny space, 10cm x 2 columns, but they then tried to squeeze in all the elements they usually put in a bigger space. It’s like trying to write ‘War and Peace’ on a postage stamp".
He argued that this resulted in smudgy photographs and type that was so small as to be unreadable.
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He added: "Several of them made matters much worse by reversing out the tiny print from a dark background. In at least one case the relpy address and telephone number were utterly illegible rendering the whole exercise relatively pointless."
Papworth did pick out some examples of legacy adverts from Barnardo’s which were worth of praise. "They continue their long record of creating innovative, ground-breaking fundraising campaigns which also enhance the brand", he commented.
Overall though he argues that the quality of legacy adverts in general is "pretty dire" compared with other fundraising adverts and, unlike them, it shows little sign of improvement over time.
‘Harvest’ is available free on request from **@ma*******.uk.
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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.