Aviva avoids “doing a Hoover” in Twitter fundraiser for Railway Children resulting in c£100k raised in a day
John Thompson | 25 February 2013 | Blogs
I’ve been planning to review how Twitter is being used by corporate fundraisers as an aid to attracting corporate partners and as a medium through which to augment and communicate existing partnerships. However, as an interim measure, due to a recent event, I thought I’d offer a quick word of warning regarding the communication of solicitation statements and notifiable amounts via Twitter, especially in relation to commercial participator campaigns.
Hang on a minute? Has Aviva set a lower and upper limit for this partnership?
#1every5
On Saturday 23rd February I received a retweet publicising Aviva’s pledge to donate £1 to Railway Children for every tweet made during that day that included the hashtag #1every5. So, Twitter being Twitter, with a couple of quick prods I’d helped raise a few quid for an amazing charity and hoped my followers and their followers etc would continue the process.
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However, back in the more plodding pace of Non-Twitter City, I suddenly thought “Hang on a minute? Has Aviva set a lower and upper limit for this partnership? What if there are millions of tweets?
After a bit of Googling and digging, I managed to discover that, in fact, a cap of £18k had been set. Back now on Twitter it soon became clear that others were probing whether Aviva had intended a “sky’s the limit” amount (unlikely and unrealistic, but…), with others accusing the company of being “measly” and engaging in a PR stunt. Indeed, by this time, way before the “day” was out, the £18k cap had already been exceeded, fuelled by retweets made by many celebrities, broadcasters and Aviva-sponsored Norwich City footballers with a combined reach of millions of followers.
But, with the cap in mind, I wondered if there was any point in continuing to add #1every5 in one’s tweets.
Tweeted the company
Feeling this could all turn a bit sour for all involved, I did a few things. I called and left a message with Aviva’s out-of-hours press office pointing out that its tweets implied a £1 donation for ALL #1every5 inclusive tweets but didn’t mention the limit. I also tweeted the company with my concerns suggesting it references the upper limit or be bound by the eventual outcome. I even emailed Howard Lake to see if he could forward my concerns to any contacts he might have, which he kindly obliged with.
You see, at the end of the day, the Charities Act makes it quite clear what’s expected from a commercial participator when it comes to communicating its support for a charity through such promotions that require a donor to do something to trigger a donation. In a nutshell (and see link below), such communications must be very clear and specify any restrictions e.g. any financial caps, duration of promotion, etc, etc. In this instance, whilst there was a condition, the £18k cap, the initiating and subsequent retweets made no reference to this.
Of course, with an allowance of only 140 characters, Twitter doesn’t easily avail itself to what might appear as over-cumbersome messages and providing a separate link to T&Cs might be anathema to the free-flowing and expedient nature of the medium. But, if you can’t make your “tweet sweet” it might be wise to chose another mechanism.
Compliance benefits everybody
Of course the requirement for compliance benefits everybody: the charity, the company and, of course, the donor that, innocently and in good faith, responds to such messages at the mere press of a button. In this instance, most donors would have expected a quid to be donated for every tweet without pausing to think. In this instance, the tweets were quite clear in saying that would be the case, however implausible that might have been.
forgetting the most basic requirement to communicate a clear statement could have proved very costly in more ways than one
As it turns out, so overwhelming was the response to this programme, Aviva decided to scrap the cap and today announced that it would honour all #1every5 tweets resulting in a whooping £97,774 for this wonderful charity.
However, I’m still left wondering how the company may have responded if #1every5 had been included in several million tweets or more. Was the eventual near 100k RTs a more palatable/affordable amount given the likely backlash if it had stuck to the cap?* Indeed, I even saw one tweeter joking that this campaign could bankrupt the company, mentioning that they were a competitor and urging his followers to RT! That too included #1every5 in its body.
To conclude, whilst a PR disaster was averted and the outcome fantastic; the charity getting five times more than it expected and Aviva looking great for donating nearly £100k to this wonderful cause, forgetting the most basic requirement to communicate a clear statement could have proved very costly in more ways than one. The nightmare scenario could have seen Aviva “doing a Hoover”.
Aviva giving £1 to Charity for every tweet of this hashtag #1every5 <- They’re a competitor to my client. Bankrupt them for a good cause.
— Le Grove (@LeGrove) February 23, 2013
Aviva donates £97,774 to charity Railway Children after extraordinary success of Twitter campaign
Commercial Participators – Institute of Fundraising
*As an aside, do these campaigns always seem to tail-off near the 100k mark?
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About John Thompson
John Thompson is a fundraising consultant with particular expertise in cause-marketing, sponsorship, strategy development, partnership marketing and executive recruitment. A blogger on UK Fundraising since 2006 with a background in corporate fundraising and public relations.