www.charitycomms.org.uk/events

1. Developing Your Brand and Image Conference
30 March 2011
Developing Effective Co-Branding Projects
CharityComms is the professional membership body for charity communicators. We
believe charity communications are integral to each charity’s work for a better world.
W: www.charitycomms.org.uk T: 0207 426 8877 E: emma@charitycomms.org.uk

2. Developing Effective Co-Branding
Projects
Jill McCall: Brand Manager Cadbury
Karen England: Fundraising Director Make-A-Wish
Foundation UK

3. Structure of the Session
What is co-branding? Why do it?
Forming your idea: what assets do you have that
partners will be interested in? – Discussion
Picking the right company and getting your foot in the
door – Discussion
Managing co-branding projects

4. What is co-branding?
‘co-branding is the practice of using multiple brand names together on
a single product or service’

5. Why develop a co-branding project?
• Donations
– Lump Sum donations
– Percentage of profits from the sale of a
product
– Join up with wider company volunteering
and fundraising initiatives
• Raising awareness of your charity
• Opportunity to borrow your partner’s
media to advertise your initiatives (e.g.
facebook page)

6. Forming your idea:
What assets do you have that
potential partners will be
interested in?

7. Your logo
Putting your logo along with a donation message on a pack can help
build brand health
consumer response: ‘it’s great that Cadbury are helping a charity’
A logo & donation can demonstrate
even greater value for money at a
higher recommended retail price
It can get display space in-store (especially
if it’s a charity that the store are also linked
to)
It can help drive appeal with a particular target audience who resonate
with the cause
Do you know how many people are
aware of your charity and what it does?

8. Your Stories
• Most advertisers will want to create an advert that elicits some kind
of emotional response
• Why? Because if an ad can elicit these kind of responses….
• It’s more likely to be remembered than if it elicits this kind of
response…
• What stories do the people you help have?

9. Your Patrons
• Celebrities can command thousands of pounds just to send out a few
tweets on behalf of a brand
• Access to a charity’s patrons can be very attractive to companies
Justin Fletcher: Patron of Make-A-Wish (who plays
Mr Tumble on the BBC) did an interview with
Mumsnet on behalf of Cadbury Wishes

10. Your People
• Every large company will have a sales force that they
want to motivate
• Having people along from your charity to present at
sales conferences can adds gravitas and motivation to
the event

11. and your advertising space
• Do you have a facebook page?
• Do you tweet?
• Do you send out an email newsletter?
• All of these can be of use for your co-
branding partner to talk about their
products or your partnership

12. Discussion
What assets do you have that
partners may be interested in?
Groups to report back in 5 mins

13. Picking the right company and
getting your foot in the door

14. Picking the right company
Do They Want to Build Their Brand?
– Target companies that invest money in brand building.
Do your homework – are they advertising? Are they
launching new products?
Who Does Your Charity Appeal to?
– Are there any obvious links? E.g. children’s charities
and children’s products. Animal charities and petfood?
However, don’t be constrained by this – e.g. Innocent
and Age Concern isn’t an obvious pairing
Are There Links With Where A Company Sources it’s
Raw Materials?
– E.g. Cadbury do a lot of work in Ghana because it’s
important that we look after the communities that
provide our cocoa
Remember to Protect Your Brand Too
– What’s their company known for? Do you want to be
associated with it?

15. Getting Your Foot in the Door and Selling Your Charity
• Think Big
– Companies can’t support lots of small scale initiatives so
make sure your idea is big enough to make it worth their
while
Link with agencies
– Brand Teams will brief agencies to come up with
communications ideas for them so it’s often much better to
speak to them
– Do you work with an advertising agency? Speak to them
about other clients of theirs that would be interested in joining
up with you
• Know your selling points
– Who does your charity appeal to, what proportion of the
population are aware of your charity and what it does?
– Present images to give people an idea of what they could do
with you. Show them what you’ve done with other companies
• Go via your company’s customers
– If the request to link with a charity is coming from one of their
big customers, companies are far more likely to listen.

16. Discussion
Which companies might be a good
link for your charity?
Groups to report back in 5 mins

17. Managing the partnership
• It is a partnership so keep your partners best
interests at heart
• Be clear about roles upfront e.g. do you need
approval? What on? How long do you need to
feedback? Who will do it?
• Be as flexible as possible

18. and to finish…