Orbis's first banner ad campaign raises £8,500
Howard Lake | 26 July 2005 | News
Orbis Flying Eye Hospital’s first online advertising campaign, launched in December 2004, raised £8,500 and boosted monthly online donations by 69% from the 400 people who clicked through to visit the charity’s website.
Orbis launched the campaign because it was aware that its website was a major source of new donors, with 24% of them having been recruited online.
The banner ad featured BA Baracus, a character from the cult 1980’s TV series The A-Team. The ad humorously played on his fear of flying: “I ain’t getting on no plane” said the gold jewellery bedecked muscleman in most episodes.
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The banner ad’s focus was on the charity’s Flying Eye hospital aircraft. “I pity the fool who refuses to help blind people see again”, says BA Baracus in the banner ad. “I ain’t getting on no plane, but I will donate some cash to the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital.”
Another of the three variants of the advert carried the message “Don’t make me mad – unnecessary blindness makes me mad.”
The banner ad, created by Lean Mean Fighting Machine, was initially placed on The Guardian and FriendsReunited websites for a week each in December 2004, following the relaunch of the charity’s website.
Orbis were pleased with the overall income from the campaign, particularly given that the South Asian tsunami disaster occurred in the middle of its run.
Orbis tracked 381 people clicking through from the Friends Reunited website and 23 from the Guardian’s site. The ads doubled the average number of first-time visitors to the site that month.
According to Samantha Dunham, e-communications manager at Orbis, the campaign paid for itself three times over. Consequently the campaign was re-run in April 2005 on the Financial Times and Virgin Radio websites. This resulted in a 50% increase in online donations which, until that date, were averaging £1,200 a month.
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.