Tommy’s appoints Bottle for brand awareness and Splashathon
Howard Lake | 7 March 2017 | News
Tommy’s, the charity that supports families of babies who go through pregnancy problems, has appointed brand communications agency Bottle to assist in its biennial Splashathon fundraising campaign.
The Oxford-based agency will also work on a project basis to maximise brand awareness of the charity.
It will be led by Bottle’s MD Natasha Hill and Editor Liz Beswick. Both have in-house charity experience from working at Cancer Research UK and Teenage Cancer Trust respectively.
Splashathon
Splashathon is a joint initiative with Water Babies, the UK’s largest baby swimming school. It is Tommy’s largest corporate supporter.
Run every other year since 2006, the campaign has raised more than £2 million for the charity. Babies and toddlers join their parents at fun, sponsored pool events, staged by their teachers across the Water Babies UK franchise network.
It is in the 25 top mass participation fundraising events in the UK, ahead of the Prince’s Trust’s Palace to Palace and the British Heart Foundation’s DECHOX.
This year the charity aims to beat previous records and raise £1 million through Splashathon events.
Tommy’s annual fundraising events have a similar approach – as well as the Splashathon it runs Danceathon, Senseathon and Singathon.
Bottle’s brief
In previous years, Water Babies and Tommy’s have handled the PR and digital campaign in-house. However, given this year’s target, they realised they need an agency. Bottle won in a five-way pitch process last month.
The agency will develop the microsite, integrated recruitment, fundraising and thank you campaigns across social media, PR and customer comms. It will also work on driving brand awareness for Water Babies and its swimming classes. Indeed, stakeholders from Water Babies were involved with the pitch process and also the decision making.
Siobhan Gray, Senior Marketing Manager at Tommy’s, said:
“Bottle’s recommended strategy and understanding of the brief and its challenges were really strong. In addition to this, the team’s energy and passion combined with their experience with Dallaglio Foundation, CRUK and Teenage Cancer Trust meant they were the right agency for the brief.”
Image: Patsi and Alaia Crookes swimming at Water Babies
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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.