Charities and the Stop Funding Hate campaign
Melanie May | 11 January 2017 | News
The Stop Funding Hate campaign, which calls upon brands to stop advertising with media outlets that it believes promotes prejudice: namely the Daily Mail, Daily Express, and The Sun, has criticised a number of big names in the past month.
Whereas a number of major supermarkets, retailers, and big brands have been outed for their ad placements in print papers, a few charities have also received criticism for online ad placement.
Here’s a round up of how charities have fared:
Guide Dogs
One of the first up was Guide Dogs, which saw an online ad for puppy sponsorship appear next to a negative piece published on Mail Online about British Muslims on 4th December last year:
Hi @guidedogs – you may be unaware that your ad is appearing on this article that makes a false & retracted claim about British Muslims? pic.twitter.com/6JiLHcbDD1
Advertisement
— Stop Funding Hate (@StopFundingHate) December 11, 2016
Tate Modern
The Tate Modern came in for criticism on 7th December, when an ad advertising its new Rauschenberg exhibition appeared above a Mail Online article on Jo Cox’s murderer and his fears concerning immigrants:
.@Tate Are you happy about your ads appearing with articles like this? Please stop advertising with the @MailOnline and @StopFundingHate. pic.twitter.com/CohE7fIsUQ
— Dr Ailsa Holland (@ailsaholland) December 7, 2016
Macmillan
The 19th December saw Macmillan ads appear next to a Katie Hopkin’s apology in the Mail Online for having called a Muslim family terrorists:
https://twitter.com/kate_brennan/status/810794512960417792
Macmillan issued this response on Twitter:
Hi Kate, thanks for alerting us. It looks like an automation issue and we've asked the team responsible to look into it.
— Macmillan Cancer Support (@macmillancancer) December 19, 2016
Its digital engagement manager, Lynda Bewley also told UK Fundraising:
“Our advertising aims to reach anyone who might need our support or want to support us, because cancer can affect anyone at any time. This means our advertising software selects the platforms that let us reach the most people.
“We have a digital advertising policy in place that stops our advertising from appearing on websites that contain sensitive content. However, as we are unable to control exactly which articles our ads appear on, we are looking into whether we could take a more tailored approach when it comes to advertising alongside particularly sensitive editorial content.”
Save the Children UK
Save the Children UK saw fundraising ads appear in The Sun, above an anti-Muslim article by Rod Liddle on 21st December:
Hi @savechildrenuk, are you happy to be associated with Rod Liddle's spread of hate? @stopfundinghate https://t.co/jGbadD3bEs pic.twitter.com/RNiqMI1rgP
— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) December 22, 2016
Save the Children UK has issued the following response:
“We advertise on multiple websites through a network model in which we do not select specific sites. Many readers of the newspapers mentioned care about children and are supporters of our work all around the world. We do not endorse any language or policy which discriminates between different groups of children.”
National Trust
On 22nd December, membership ads for the National Trust appeared either side of an article by James Delingpole criticising the charity’s plans to promote the gay and transgender links of some of its buildings.
https://twitter.com/visualsumo/status/812046002588975104
It issued the following statement:
Hello, we understand the level of concern on this issue, but as a charity that is for everyone… (1/2)
— National Trust (@nationaltrust) December 22, 2016
… we don’t exclude national newspapers when trying to reach all our supporters. (2/2)
— National Trust (@nationaltrust) December 22, 2016
Solving ad placement issues
Stop Funding Hate, which currently has over 69,000 Twitter followers and over 200,000 likes on Facebook, says it is possible to control where online ads appear, and is directing organisations to Google Adwords, which has a number of articles on how to limit where ads appear online, including one on how to exclude webpages, sites and domains, as well as how to exclude pages about specific topics.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.