Jake Humphrey uses Facebook Live to promote corporate partnership opportunity
Howard Lake | 12 January 2017 | News
TV sports presenter Jake Humphrey yesterday took the unusual approach of broadcasting live on Facebook from a Norfolk supermarket to promote a corporate partnership opportunity for CLIC Sargent.
Using Facebook Live he spoke for 5 mins 27 seconds from Morrisons in Norwich, to highlight the fact that Morrisons staff will soon vote to choose the company’s charity partner of the year. This is probably one of the first times that a corporate fundraising partnership has been promoted in this way.
And I'm about to go live with Freya from @Morrisons in Norwich right now…head to my FaceBook…NOW!!! #YoungLivesVCancer
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) January 11, 2017
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Wearing a CLIC Sargent t-shirt – he is a CLIC Sargent Ambassador – Humphrey acknowledged in posting the video that his approach was “rather random I know”. But he encouraged Facebook users to “join me to find out why… and YOU could save someone’s life…!!!”
He clearly knows the stats about childhood cancer and presents them convincingly as he walks around the supermarket, responding to comments from other shoppers who recognise him.
“If you work at Morrisons, if you know someone who works at Morrisons, we would love them to vote for CLIC Sargent”, he says.
He adds “I don’t think they’ve seen many Facebook Lives in Morrisons”.
The Morrisons staff vote opens on 16 January and closes on 27 January 2017.
And now, from Norwich, it’s Jake Humphrey!
After his call to action he finds a little girl called Freya in the store and interviews her mother Samantha and father Steve to find out what their daughter has experienced following her diagnosis of neuroblastoma at 17 months.
He asks her father about what CLIC Sargent means to them and how it helped them as a family. Appropriately enough, Steve has worked for Morrisons for 26 years
The comments to the live video are overwhelmingly positive, with many people reporting that they work for Morrisons and have or will vote for CLIC Sargent.
Humphrey wasn’t entirely on his own as he broadcast his appeal: he was accompanied by at least one cameraman and assistant to capture his broadcast.
Humphrey concludes the video saying:
“That’s a family whose lives changed for ever when they were told that little Freya had neuroblastoma, something that has a 40% survival rate… CLIC Sargent have made what has been a very hard journey so far as bearable as possible.
“If you work for Morrisons, if you know someone who works for Morrisons, and you want to see little girls like Freya learning about the world… please speak to anyone you know, canvas people, get the message out there that Morrisons have the chance to work with CLIC Sargent. It would be worth millions of pounds a year to a very small charity that do amazing work.
“So don’t do it for me, don’t do it for you: do it for Freya”.
He then asks Freya to say goodbye on the video, and then reminds us that we can find CLIC Sargent online, on Facebook and on Twitter.
How the campaign came about
The compelling video looks simple with its unedited single take, albeit presented by an experienced TV presenter and commentator. But how did it all come about?
Ruth Caufield, Fundraising Manager, CLIC Sargent, told UK Fundraising:
“Jake Humphrey, Freya, and her lovely family all live nearby to the Morrisons store where the Facebook Live happened.
“Jake is a hands-on CLIC Sargent ambassador with a great understanding of what we do as a charity. He had been in touch with our celebrity manager directly, asking how he could help back our bid for the Morrisons partnership. Freya’s family had also been in touch, offering to share their story in support of our campaign.
“Our digital team spotted that Jake uses FB Live to broadcast from sporting events. They suggested making the most of his broadcasting talents and massive social media reach by asking him to interview Freya and her family using FB Live about her cancer, and how CLIC Sargent is helping them through treatment.
“Freya’s dad Steve has worked at Morrisons for 26 years, and his colleagues throughout our campaign have been incredibly supportive, so it was straightforward to organise.
“We’ve don’t generally ask our celebrity ambassadors to support our corporate fundraising campaigns, and we’ve not used Facebook Live for them before, so this was a first!
“But we’ll definitely be doing it again. The results have been amazing, 120k views and counting, and it’s helped us reach people who have probably never heard of CLIC Sargent before – most importantly Morrisons colleagues!”
This is 3 year old Freya. She has a horrible type of cancer. Today we were live together in @Morrisons PLEASE https://t.co/F6O8ss9y7v
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) January 11, 2017
https://twitter.com/heather___f/status/819216438955245568
Seriously!?!? I'm an @CLIC_Sargent ambassador & we want, no NEED, @Morrisons money!!! 💷💷💷 https://t.co/izujm8JkHh
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) January 11, 2017
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.