Third Sector PR

Select a Third Sector organisation of your choice, operating in the UK and describe the organisation’s objectives, and if stated its values. Draw a stakeholder map for the organisation. Critically evaluate the recent (within the last two years) public relations activities of the organisation in light of its objectives and values.

Make two public relations recommendations for the organisation’s future PR. Each recommendation should include a rationale for the recommendation; outline how the recommendation could be accomplished, and should outline how any challenges of implementing the recommendation could be overcome.                                               

The following essay will be examining the role of the third sector in Britain, specifically looking at Cancer Research UK, and analysing their nationwide operations in a public relations context. The third sector is characterised by its values, not-for-profit status and independence, and is grounded in social and political philosophy.

Until 2010, the Cabinet Office of the British government had an Office of the Third Sector that defined the “third sector” as “the place between State and the private sector”. Upon their 2010 election, the coalition government renamed the department the Office for Civil Society, or ‘Big Society’ as it has become more commonly known. According to gov.uk the government defines the third sector as “non-governmental organisations that are value driven and which principally re-invest their surpluses to further social, environmental or cultural objectives.” Third sector organisations include, voluntary and community charities, trade unions, social enterprises, cooperatives, housing associations and friendly societies, and their work is worth over 1 trillion US dollars a year globally.

Cancer Research UK

Cancer Research UK is a cancer research and awareness charity that formed on the 4^th February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. Their work is funded almost entirely by the public via donations, legacies, community fundraisers, events, and retail and corporate partnerships, and they are the world’s largest independent cancer research charity with over 40,000 people regularly volunteering.

Stakeholder Map

Here is the organisation’s stakeholder map, outlining their operations, their structure and how they function on a day-to-day basis.

Values

Any organisation needs to have a consistent and relatable ethos, and with a subject as personal and emotive as cancer, the message needs to be right. Cancer Research UK have their core values posted on their official website and they are divided up into six specific areas; Ambition, Collaboration, Integrity, Impact, Excellence and Passion for our Vision.

The Collaboration and Integrity sections are the two that best represent the brand’s ethos. The website says of Collaboration, “By building strong, long-lasting relationships with teams internally, charities, the government and our supporters we can deliver progress, excellent services and ultimate achieve better results.” This is crucial in a public relations context as by building long standing relationships and customer loyalty, the brand therefore gains credibility and an honest reputation. The organisation echo this on their site; “Honesty, trust and authenticity are inherent in the way we work. We are guardians of the trust our supporters give us and we think carefully about spending their money well.”  In the third sector, it is an especially sensitive area as to how an organisation spends their funds and by posting this information publicly, Cancer Research UK is coming across as an empathetic, memorable brand.

Objectives and Strategies

In 2009 Cancer Research UK released a five year ‘Strategy Plan’ on their website, outlining the organisation’s future intentions. The thirty-page document runs up until 2014 and explains how Cancer Research UK have divided their core work up into three “broad” categories; research, information and influencing public policy. The central objective is to reduce the number of deaths in the UK from the disease; “Our vision is to beat cancer. Our purpose outlines what we will do to fulfil that ambition. Our goals specify how much we want to achieve, and together they form our five year strategy.” The organisation also aim to spend at least £300million a year on their cause and how the income is generated will be explained in more detail later on.

This chart below is taken from the strategy plan and details just where Cancer Research UK’s priorities are in terms of objectives.                     

Research Strategy

In 2011/12, Cancer Research UK spent over £332 million on research in institutes, hospitals and universities across the country, accentuating just how crucial the research phase is to the organisation’s overall strategy.

The research process has been divided into three ‘themes’ in the strategy plan as follows:

• ·      Focusing research on scientific quality and impact
• ·      Creating the right environment for research
• ·      Providing the right people for research

Around 40% of the organisation’s annual research activity is focused on lab studies into the biology of cancer. The portfolio of work will be targeted at the basic understanding of cancer, primary prevention, risk statification, symptom awareness, diagnosis and screening, treatment strategies and treatment management.

This chart shows how the research funds are distributed in preventing advancements in the different types of cancer.

Fundraising

Cancer Research UK’s supporters fund over half of all cancer research done in the UK and the organisation boast over 4,000 world-class scientists, doctors and nurses. For every £1 that is donated, 80% is spent on researching the disease, and there is no government funding, it is funded entirely by the public with over a million people donating regularly.

The public are encouraged to sign up for ‘fundraising packs’ on the Cancer Research site, with a variety of ways to generate money that appeal to the masses on offer. You can choose to do whatever you want to raise money or if you are stuck there are suggestions and examples of previous ways people have gained sponsorship.  You can register for free on the site and instantly get sent a starter pack that allows you to begin your own attempts at fundraising.  The organisation has also moved in line with the digital age with participants now able to gather sponsors by setting up a personal web page on which people can donate.

Funds can also be raised via telephone, with the organisation ringing people who have previously donated or publicly signaled their support for the cause.

This picture from cancerresearchuk.org is a break down of the money that the organisation receives, and where the funds come from.

As you can see, the majority of the organisation’s money comes from legacies, with £148million being donated from people’s wills. £100million comes from direct donations, a significant contribution, and a substantial £65million is generated from shop income. With Tesco being Cancer Research UK’s official partner, a high proportion of the money comes from in-store donations.  The 40,000 volunteers contribute a healthy £24million and are an integral part of the organisation and its ethos.

Race for Life campaign

Cancer Research UK’s events account for 14% of their overall income and are a crucial part of the organisation’s strategy to raise awareness. Perhaps their most famous event is the annual Race for Life campaign, which first took place in 1994. The event was conceived, designed and launched by Jim Cowan and specifically aimed at raising awareness of women’s cancers, with an all female participation. It has now become one of the UK’s largest charity fundraising events and an incredible 6million participants have raised over £493million since 1994, more than any other British charity event.

To help the concept get off the ground Cancer Research partnered up with a number of celebrity ‘ambassadors’ to raise awareness, in line with their five-year objectives. Tesco and Cancer Research ambassador, Paula Radcliffe, promoted the race in 2012 with her mother who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. This was a clever move in a public relations context, as Radcliffe is known for her running and the situation with her mother creates ‘pathos’, empathy from the public. This in turn strengthens the race’s cause, as the public became involved on an emotional level and was more willing to participate.  Cancer Research UK further emphasise their ethos however by appointing ten everyday women, from a variety of shapes, sizes, ages and fitness levels, every year to be race ambassadors. This is actually more effective than using celebrity figures as those who are selected are completely relatable to the public on an emotional and personable level.

One of Cancer Research UK’s main partners is the ‘Bobby Moore Fund’, a trust set up in memory of England’s World Cup winning captain, who died of bowel cancer in 1993. It raises about £1million a year for bowel cancer research and awareness. In 2006, the 5km ‘Run for Moore’ was established, a male equivalent of the Race for Life event. It was developed after the Equal Opportunity Commission wrote to Cancer Research UK, claiming that the female only Race for Life breached the Sex Discrimination Act (1975).  In its first two years the race raised over £450,000 and the last event took place in 2009 with 1700 participants. The Bobby Moore Fund continues to operate however in partnership with Cancer Research UK and raise money for Bowel cancer.

Government and influencing public policy

As discussed earlier, influencing public policy is one of the organisation’s main objectives, and although they receive no direct government funding, they co-operate with parliament on a number of campaigns. One of Cancer Research’s key partners is the NHS so the relationship they share with Whitehall is crucial to the medical industry. The organisation regularly campaign and lobby to keep cancer at the top of the health agenda and there is a range of parliamentary documents on their official website readily available to the public. They work with the governments in Westminster, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Europe and meet regularly with Ministers, politicians and civil servants to discuss how legislation can be changed for the better. The organisation’s Public Affairs team writes detailed briefings for parliamentarians’ debates, and they raise the issue of cancer at party political conferences and other such events.

The two main issues that the organisation has publicly lobbied for are sun care and smoking, and they have had previous success in influencing legislation. In 2012, Cancer Research partnered up with the NHS and government to launch an anti-smoking campaign aimed at reducing the amount of smokers.  The campaign, created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, was centered around a television advert showing a group of young children discussing what they liked about cigarette packaging. The objective of the initiative was to target young people and women, and deter them from smoking by bringing in a law making it mandatory that tobacco products become plainly packaged.  People were encouraged to sign a petition at answerisplain.org, a petition that had 79,000 signatories.  The initiative hasn’t come into effect in the UK yet, but has proved successful in Australia, and it follows another tobacco legislation that was passed last year banning all supermarkets in Britain from openly displaying their tobacco products. The legislation is still ongoing and all small shops will be affected by 2015, with a £5,000 penalty fine. The organisation were also a big part of the UK smoking ban that came into effect in 2007, and they worked with the government, the EU, and the NHS to push the ban through.

Other campaigns and initiatives

In the winter of 2011, Cancer Research UK launched the ‘R UV UGLY’ campaign, an initiative that saw the organisation team up with ‘SkinClinics’, an independent dermatology company. After new research revealed the significant risks that tanning salons and ‘sunbeds’ pose, especially to younger people who are increasingly using the facilities, the initiative was launched to raise awareness.

People were offered free cosmetic skin scans at ‘SkinClinics’ to see the damage they are and could be doing to their skin, and several advisory and informative videos were posted on Cancer Research’s official YouTube channel. It was a successful campaign featuring television, radio and billboard advertisements as well as posts on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to raise awareness. It was a good PR move as Cancer Research knew the demographic that uses tanning salons the most are the same young generation that use social media. This ensured that the message was getting to the right people and that the organisation proved themselves innovative and in tune with modern public relations techniques.

Despite continued progress in the scientific research department, the organisation’s income fell from £515million in 2010 to £493million in 2012. In a bid to remedy this, Cancer Research decided to refresh its image and issued a rebrand. Richard Taylor, executive director of fundraising and marketing said the organisation wanted to appear “warmer, transparent and appreciative”, calling the new identity “smart, but not geeky”.

One of the main reasons the rebrand was issued was due to the old logo not standing out enough and having an outdated appearance. This twinned with the economic downturn were the two main contributors towards the decision. Taylor continued to confirm this, “The challenge for us is mainly due to the recession and the economy, research money has been flat for the past three years and that underpins the reasons we are doing this change,” he said in 2012.

The rebrand was launched with a series of television adverts on Boxing Day of 2012, and was accompanied by social media and traditional media marketing tools. The rebrand was a crucial part of raising awareness, one of the charity’s main objectives, and proved a success, hitting the mark in revamping communications with stakeholders and re-invigorating its image on the high street and within medical and scientific communities. Graham Hales, CEO of Interbrand, the company that designed the rebrand, said of the outcome; “It shows an organisation moving forward with energy, people are inside and included. In a charity you are conscious of commerciality, constantly talking about the value of the brand and how it can help an organisation. Every stakeholder needs to understand the value of a brand and how it increases an organisation, not as a cost, but as an investment.”

Recommendations

Broadly speaking, Cancer Research’s public awareness campaigns have proved successful and the donations they receive have allowed them to surpass their objective of investing at least £300million a year into research. They have been at the heart of the process that has seen the cancer survival rate double in the past forty years. With an organisation that is growing and expanding year by year, it is hard to sternly criticise their methods, but for the sake of hypothesis there might be a couple of alterations that could prove successful;

·      Exploit the proven success that lies in the supermarket industry

·      Launch a campaign on to the supermarket shelves

Tesco has worked hand in hand with Cancer Research for over ten years, serving as its official partner. As I mentioned earlier, £65million of Cancer Research’s income is generated from shop located fund raising and a substantial amount of that figure comes from Tesco’s 2,975 stores nationwide. Tesco also named the organisation as their ‘Charity of the Year’ in 2012, and pledged to raise £10million over the twelve months to go towards research.

The success of the partnership is all down to the mass appeal that Tesco have because of their size, familiarity and sheer weight in numbers. A key objective is to raise awareness and because Tesco have such a large consumer base, Cancer Research has a vast platform to gain exposure on. I would suggest that if Cancer Research tapped into this success and tried to also merge with similar brands such as ASDA and Sainsbury’s, their income would increase exponentially. It would do nothing but increase awareness, as the power in numbers that these supermarkets have is incomparable to other mediums.

If we were talking about a commercial sector organisation’s relationship with Tesco then of course the idea would seem ridiculous. However I believe that because it is a noble non-profit cause that affects everyone, there would be no conflict of interests or obvious dispute over market share. In fact, hypothetically speaking, if Cancer Research UK announced a partnership with ASDA, it would be a PR disaster for Tesco to come out and criticise, as they would give the impression of not really being concerned about the disease but merely the exposure the partnership gives them.

Practically speaking, the partnerships would work identically to the current relationship with Tesco, with a focus being on in-store exposure and community based fundraising.

With just one major supermarket partnership, a £65million taking is a good return, but I feel there is a real potential there to expand into the supermarket industry and ride their success. This would thus complete two objectives, raising awareness and investing in research, as well as boosting the income that had dropped between 2010 and 2012.

If I was in charge of marketing for the organisation I would also suggest an initiative that saw Cancer Research teaming up with their commercial partners to produce a ‘cancer chocolate’ product.

One other suggestion I’d put forward if I were in charge would be a marketing campaign involving Cancer Research’s commercial partners. I would design an exclusive confectionary product, i.e. a chocolate bar, and wrap it in bright pink packaging that stands out. The product would be stocked in Tesco’s 2,900 stores up and down the country, and its objective would be to raise awareness for women’s cancers, specifically breast, with either a proportion or the entire cost of the chocolate going straight to Cancer Research.

Cancer Research could partner up with a manufacturer such as Nestle or Mars for the product and it would be mutually beneficial for both parties. Cancer Research would be adhering to their objectives by raising money for research and increasing awareness, whereas the confectionary companies would be gaining exposure themselves and improving their public image from helping such a worthy cause.

The initiative could be called ‘ThinkPink’ and would make sense on a public relations level as those affected by breast cancer are the same demographic of women who are the chocolate industry’s target audience. Women would be willing to enjoy chocolate whilst contributing to a worthy cause that affects them personally. Cancer Research, Tesco and the chocolate distributor would all benefit from the scheme and I would run a blanket marketing campaign to raise awareness, covering social media as well as television and billboard advertising.

The only challenge I could see with the initiative is if the chocolate manufacturers were reluctant to put up the production costs, or lose some of their profits. I don’t see this as being a major problem though as with a cause such as cancer, organisations would be happy to help and it would boost their reputation on a public relations level. A company such as Nestle has had PR problems in the past, gaining a negative reputation for the breast milk fiasco of the 1980’s.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would say that Cancer Research’s operations are concise and designed to achieve their objectives. Their track record is proof of the strategies that they implement coming to fruition, with 40,000 regular volunteers and a status as the world’s leading independent cancer research organisation.

Their previous campaigns have shown them to have political weight, clear concise messages, and most of all a good understanding of modern PR techniques. The three main objectives they set are to improve research and awareness, and to influence public policy, and there is no denying looking at the evidence that they have accomplished this. They are continuing to grow as an organisation and the medical evidence backs the progress up