Sightsavers launches river blindness campaign

Howard Lake | 10 December 2007 | Newswire

Sightsavers International has launched an integrated direct marketing and PR campaign focusing on its work to prevent river blindness in Africa.

The creative approach to the campaign was developed by Burnett Works and centres around the preventative treatment, Mectizan, which is supplied free of charge to Sightsavers by manufacturer Merck & Co.

“We invited Burnett Works to come up with a creative treatment which could be used across a range of communications media and which allowed for different messages to be developed for donor recruitment and development,” explained Maxine Angel of Sightsavers International.

“The bold, typographical approach is striking and the copy aims to make people think about the fact that river blindness can so easily be prevented.”

To date the creative treatment has been applied to a donor recruitment insert and door drop, a reactivation pack for lapsed donors and upgrade packs which aim to convert existing donors to regular giving. In addition, the creative outline has been used to develop press advertisements and an outdoor poster campaign.

Response data coming in for the reactivation pack, which was the first to be sent out, indicate a response rate of over 4.6%, with the financial target already met within two weeks.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Sightsavers International works to combat blindness in developing countries, restoring sight through specialist treatment and eye care. The charity also supports people who are irreversibly blind by providing education, counselling and training to those living in poverty in some of the world’s poorest countries. Further information is available at www.sightsavers.org

Burnett Works is a full service marketing and communications agency working exclusively in the not-for-profit sector. Its managing director is Jackie Fowler and current clients include Cancer Research UK, Friends of the Earth, UNHCR, Plan UK and The Camphill Family.

For further media information and additional images:
Gillian Egan
Burnett Works
Telephone: 020 7841 3076

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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.