The impact of brand orientation on managerial practice: a quantitative study of the UK's top 500 fundraising managers

This paper explores the impact of brand orientation on the managerial practices of fundraising managers in the top 500 UK charities and, in particular, on their ability to attract voluntary income. A series of hypotheses was tested including whether level of brand orientation is associated with different patterns of influence within charities, with the range and type of brand communicators used and with the extent to which organisational objectives are fulfilled. A key finding of the research was that high brand‐oriented fundraising managers attract significantly more voluntary income than low brand‐oriented fundraisers, but that level of brand orientation was not related to statutory income. Such findings are consistent with current theory and practice of branding in which a brand is perceived as a product or organisation plus, where the plus indicates a unique set of values which allows differentiation and hence, donor choice, within competitive environments. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

Charity brand personality: can smaller charitable organizations leverage their brand's personality to influence giving

The importance of establishing a strong brand identity has been the focus for consumer brand managers for decades. Organizations develop and communicate a distinctive brand personality as a means of attracting consumers and cultivating long‐term relationships. While the concept of branding has gained recent attention as an important strategy for nonprofit practitioners, little empirical data exist on the role a charity's brand personality might play in attracting donors. A few recent studies of large national charitable organizations provide support that charities exhibit distinctive personalities. This study explores whether smaller, local scope charitable organizations, without the benefit of national brand recognition, also exhibit distinctive brand personalities and whether such brand personalities influence donors. Results from five charitable organizations, from four distinct categories of cause, find that brand personality traits that are both differentiating and relevant to donors influence charitable giving. The findings provide nonprofit practitioners with valuable insights for leveraging their brand's personality to turn donor awareness into commitment and establish a stronger market position. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The power of positioning: A case history from the children's society

The Children's Society (formerly the Church of England Children's Society) historically has had a loyal supporter base from the Anglican Church. With the advent of the National Lottery and competition from the thousands of new charities that are registered each year the Society decided to appoint a marketing director to reposition its ‘brand’. This paper reviews the findings of the research undertaken, the decision to change the logo and the way in which this was implemented. The new identity was only introduced in the spring of 1998 so it is too early to evaluate the response, but all the initial signs are encouraging.     

品牌形象形成机制的研究探讨

品牌识别与品牌形象是品牌的两个侧面,品牌识别由品牌商标、语言、符号等组成,传达品牌价值、利益和个性,品牌形象则是存在于消费者心智中的主观感知,使消费者对品牌的认知、评价和态度的综合。品牌识别与品牌形象是一种传播关系,品牌识别是信息源,品牌形象是传播的结果,而传播媒介则是品牌识别和品牌形象之间的传播桥梁。本研究从品牌形象等相关概念入手,对传播机制进行了清晰梳理,指出品牌关系、品牌环境对品牌形象感知的形成具有不同的影响和作用,结合实践需要,提出了提高营销效率沉淀品牌形象的操作性建议。     

The inside effects of a strong external employer brand: how external perceptions can influence organizational absenteeism rates

In this study, we invoke a social identity and job resources perspective to investigate the impact of an organization’s internal and external employer brand images on employee absenteeism. Specifically, using workforce samples of 56 Belgian companies (n = 12670) and a second independent study sample (n = 4461), we assess the relative importance of the internal employer brand image (i.e. employee perceptions) and the external employer brand image (i.e. non-employee perceptions) in predicting the absenteeism rate in these organizations. Results show that corporate absenteeism decreases as internal (employee) views and external (non-employee) views of the organization decline. Results further show that the external employer brand image may be a more important driver of absenteeism than the internal employer brand image. Such results highlight that an organization’s external image may be a strong antecedent of important internal organizational behavior outcomes.     

Online social network fundraising: Threats and potentialities

There has been a growth in online fundraising from crowdfunding apps, like GoFundMe, that propagate fundraising appeals on social networking sites. In the online space, these crowdfunding apps pose a potential threat to the traditional intermediation role of charities. The disintermediation threat is that donors choose crowdfunding intermediaries instead of charities to channel their giving. In this article, we discuss what makes crowdsourced fundraising effective and how charities can adapt to this new dynamic for more effective online fundraising emphasizing two key success factors: brand strength/reputation and managing the donor experience. In addition, we explain the advantages and disadvantages of social media fundraising and giving and propose ways charities can leverage their good reputations and public trust to stimulate reintermediation. Finally, we propose a landscape for future research based on model that emphases the fundraising campaign's ability to stimulate viral sharing within and between online social networks.     

Developing a brand from within: Involving employees and volunteers when developing a new brand position

In February 1996 Barnardo's invited six of the UK's leading advertising agencies to pitch for the provision of full and above the line communications and marketing services. Banner McBride was included as part of a joint WPP communications and marketing team (including Ogilvy & Mather) selected to support Barnardo's efforts to reposition and communicate the Barnardo's brand. As the WPP team said at the beginning, Barnardo's were ‘a well-known brand that was not known well’. The challenge was to increase the organisation's saliency, but at the same time build on years of heritage and ensure that employees and volunteers were included from the beginning. This paper describes how the brand building exercise was tackled and how internal communications were developed by the provision of different media.     

The key factors for success in corporate fundraising

From the author's basic model on how charities should approach companies, ‘The Company as a Resource’, this paper offers a further and more detailed framework to encompass the major factors that must be identified, considered and developed to ensure success towards the year 2000 in the field of corporate fundraising. By breaking down the general environment and relating key success factors to different elements he offers practical advice and guidance for developing this area.     

Missing a strategic marketing trick? The use of online social networks by UK charities

• This paper explores the use of online social networks in the charity sector. Twelve major UK charities from a range of sectors and three digital marketing agencies were selected to provide rich interview data on the current adoption of online social networks by UK charities. The empirical findings illustrate the diverse drivers in adopting online social networks including regaining control of a brand, external pressures and gaining new audiences. Levels of usage differed significantly and the resistors consistently cited were the lack of skills and resources. The strategic marketing implications for the development of online social networks are also outlined for the UK charity market. The value provided by this paper stems from exploring the organisational perspective rather than the consumer experience of contributing to social networks, within a context which is often overlooked, the charity sector.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Building and rebuilding charity brands: the role of creative agencies

People who work in creative agencies tend to see a charitable organisation as a brand like any in the commercial world, and rightly so. While this is the correct starting point, there is often a huge gap between this simple understanding and the ability to deliver the changes in perception and behaviour that charities need. Besides strict governance and the obvious need for transparency and integrity, charity brands face many other issues, whether rebuilding or starting from scratch. They exist mainly to solve problems, not to meet a demand. Understanding this very different raison d'etre is the second greatest hurdle that creative agencies have to overcome when working on charity brands. The greatest is getting the charity to consider itself a brand and all that entails. When charities get beyond their complacency and suspicion and creative agencies their arrogance and superficiality—as with Breakthrough Breast Cancer and the Fairtrade Foundation—these two obstacles can be overcome. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Branding from the inside out at Yahoo!: HR's role as brand builder

Every day, thousands of companies spend millions of dollars to build external brand identity and customer loyalty. Branding implies more than just selling a product or service; the best companies create a strong emotional connection between the message and the product. The brand attaches meaning, the lifestyle, the transformation, the potential, the joy, and the fulfillment to the product. Today, competing for employees is as difficult as competing for customers; building employee loyalty is as important as building customer loyalty; and treating employees right is the key to treating shareholders right. Here we discuss what Yahoo! has done to build its strong branding image. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Charity brands: A qualitative study of current practice

A number of fundraising managers and directors of UK charities were interviewed with the objective of understanding to what extent branding was used in the sector, what development possibilities exist for commercial techniques in charities, and what the constraints may be on such practices. It was found that many charities already use day-to-day brand techniques, (without describing them as ‘branding’), but brand development work was scarce. Charities have a number of objectives competing with fundraising when considering their brand content. They must also satisfy the need to respect issues about how the cause itself is communicated, and possible needs to re-educate the donor community or the public. One commercial practice in particular could be developed further in charity branding: this is the idea of using the personality of the charity itself as something with which donors could associate positively.     

Face-to-face donor cancellation rates (attrition): establishing a benchmark

• Face-to-face fundraising, both on the street and on the doorstep, has taken place in the UK for well over a decade. Its success can be said to be dependent on the balance between acquisition costs and income generated for the charity. Whilst the former is easy to measure, the latter has proven much harder to predict. This paper reports the results of a survey of the payment behaviour of over 377 000 face-to-face recruited regular giving donors, to 30 charities. Whilst charity brand awareness was found not to have a significant impact on levels of attrition, the region in which campaigns were run, together with the level of the ask and the cause of the charity, were all found to have a significant effect on attrition. As a result of improvements in both attrition and average gift from 2004 to 2006, charities have reported increased income from their street and door face-to-face campaigns.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

铜鼓视觉形象的身份式品牌塑造探析

铜鼓作为广西历史上的民族图腾,是区域形象和民族形象的象征。铜鼓视觉形象的身份归属价值为其身份式品牌塑造提供了天然优势,利用品牌概念和个体经历统一的品牌定位和个体人群的社会身份归属定位,实现品牌内涵和公众情感相融合,瞄准大众传播活动下的概念市场,打造以铜鼓品牌内涵为主流代表的新文化产业,为品牌赢得独特的竞争优势。     

An investigation into the values dimensions of branding: implications for the charity sector

• Branding is being adopted by charities and written about in academic and practitioner charity literature with increasing frequency. There is also growing concern, however, about the over-commercialistion of the sector and the misappropriation of techniques developed specifically for the commercial environment. Literature supporting the claim that charities are values-based organisations is reviewed and the proposition is made that it is in fact the non-negotiability of charity values that differentiate them from commercial organisations. Given the significance of values in the charity sector, the paper argues that a clearer understanding of how values are conceptualised in branding is necessary in order to establish whether branding is an appropriate and effective tool in the charity context. To achieve this, the paper reviews relevant branding literature focusing in particular upon the delineation of the values dimensions identified in for-profit branding models. To aid further understanding of these values dimensions in the non-profit context and their applicability (or otherwise) to it, the metaphors of brand as ‘mirror’, ‘lamp’ and ‘lens’ are introduced.
• It is argued that in the corporate sector the brand concept has been utilised to ‘mirror’ those values that underpin the needs and desires of consumers. In contrast to the passive mirror, when operationalised as ‘lamp’, it is claimed that the brand aims to influence both the values of the organisation and the values of its target audience. It is postulated that neither of these approaches is appropriate for values-led organisations and that it is only as a metaphorical ‘lens’, projecting the values of the organisation itself that branding offers an applicable and effective model in the charity context.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

铜鼓视觉形象的身份式品牌塑造探析

铜鼓作为广西历史上的民族图腾,是区域形象和民族形象的象征。铜鼓视觉形象的身份归属价值为其身份式品牌塑造提供了天然优势,利用品牌概念和个体经历统一的品牌定位和个体人群的社会身份归属定位,实现品牌内涵和公众情感相融合,瞄准大众传播活动下的概念市场,打造以铜鼓品牌内涵为主流代表的新文化产业,为品牌赢得独特的竞争优势。     

Young Americans' ethnic identity toward disaster advertising: The effects of disaster location and message types

The purpose of this study is to examine young American donors' perspectives toward disaster ad messages. Attitude toward helping others, social responsibility, ethnic identity on donation behavior, attitude toward ad, and advertising effectiveness were examined using 2 experimental variables (disaster location and message types). The findings explain that the constructs are positively related to each other and the 2 experimental variables significantly influence young Americans' attitudes toward ads and advertising effectiveness. In addition, young Americans expressed stronger feelings concerning attitude toward charity ads, and a higher level of advertising effectiveness was demonstrated when the disaster occurred domestically. Further, emotional messages were considered more persuasive than factual messages. As managerial suggestions, when charities work for domestic disasters, emphasizing patriotism and an emotional message can increase the positive attitude toward ads and advertising effectiveness. On the contrary, when charities work for international disasters, the messages should focus on diminishing distinctions between in‐group and out‐group perceptions.     

Whatever happened to the pub crawl? — a change in attitude to charitable fundraising

This paper argues that there needs to he greater clarity in the role of today's charities and calls for structured research and evaluation of modern fundraising techniques and strategies, particularly to help smaller charities. It also blames the many councils of voluntary organisations and umbrella associations supporting the smaller charities for failing to provide adequate information and training in fundraising.     

Congruence of Brand Image and Corporate Image: An International Business Perspective

ABSTRACT

While there is a widespread understanding among academicians and practitioners alike that corporate branding is one of the most critical objectives of a successful marketing strategy, the majority of the studies in this area have focused on the western multinationals. This paper empirically examines the degree of congruence between consumer brand image and the retailers' corporate image in the retail industry using an Asian sample.