Fairtrade Foundation and Fairtrade Fortnight

Fairtrade Foundation and Fairtrade Fortnight

by | Mar 1, 2023 | Branding, Marketing, PR & Comms

How to create a successful marketing campaign: Fairtrade Foundation and Fairtrade Fortnight.

The latest in our irregular series looking at successful marketing campaigns and how you can create your own winning promotion.

Fairtrade is a global movement for change that works directly with businesses, consumers, and campaigners to make trade deliver for farmers and workers. It has a strong and active presence in the UK, represented by the Fairtrade Foundation. The Fairtrade Foundation was established in 1992 by various charities, campaigns, faith, and women’s groups as an independent non-profit organisation. In the last 30 years, the Fairtrade Foundation has grown and 65% of people in the UK say they choose Fairtrade. And it’s growing; Fairtrade sales increased by 14% in 2020. But like any organisation, it can’t rest on its laurels and needs to keep promoting itself and most importantly it’s products. So, each year the Fairtrade Foundation runs Fairtrade Fortnight. So, what makes the campaign so successful?

Strong message

Fairtrade Fortnight has a simple message and in 2023 links in with climate change. This year, they have used the rationing of fresh produce as a hook. One of the reasons the message is strong is that it combines head and heart – something that always works well when it comes to consumer buying behaviour. The ‘heart’ message of the cause of the people producing the food and planet, mixes well with the ‘head’ message of you can make a difference through your day-to-day purchases.

Strong stunt

Taking the strong message, the Fairtrade Foundation has created a great stunt that will create headlines and column inches. The Endangered Aisle will shine a light on the supermarket staples most at risk of becoming endangered from the climate crisis, including coffee, bananas, and chocolate.

A strong call to action

The final thing that makes this campaign successful is a clear, simple call to action: Buy fairtrade. The campaign has explained the issue of farmers not being fairly paid, and land suffering climate change effects and then set out what everyone can do about it.

Taking note of these three things could make all the difference to your next campaign. How can you create a message which reaches both heart and head? Can you create a stunt that catches people’s eyes? And the most important thing is to make sure you have a strong call to action. Indeed all your marketing materials and activity need this so it’s worth spending some time on.

Let us know which of these tactics you use and what success they have brought you.

Pic courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Pic showing a stall selling different vegetables with a Fairtrade sign at the back
Toilet Twinning and World Toilet Day

Toilet Twinning and World Toilet Day

by | Nov 18, 2022 | Marketing, PR & Comms, Social media

How to create a successful marketing campaign: Toilet Twinning and World Toilet Day

The latest in our irregular series looking at successful marketing campaigns and how you can create your own winning promotion.

The charity Toilet Twinning was established in 2010 as a joint venture of NGOs Tearfund and Cord. Since then 175,337 Toilet Twins have been created and 1,052,022 lives have been transformed through safe sanitation. It raises money for sanitation projects through ‘toilet twinning’. For £60 you can twin your loo with a family’s household latrine in a vulnerable community in a country of your choosing. You then get a certificate to hang in ‘smallest room’, along with with a photo and GPS coordinates so you can look up your twin’s location on Google Maps. Lovely! You can imagine, it’s a quirky gift idea for that hard to but for uncle at Christmas but probably quite a hard sell to get people interested the rest of the year. This is why we love Toilet Twinning’s World Toilet Day campaign. Yes, World Toilet Day is a thing! So, what’s so good about this campaign and how can you recreate its success?

1. Great hook

Making use of an awareness day, anniversary or other time of public interest can save you a lot of hard work. There will already be other people, brands, organisations who will be sharing content on this topic and using the hashtag so you can piggy back on that too. The most important thing is that the hook you choose is really relevant to your organisation. World Toilet Day and Toilet Twinning were made for each other. Find your perfect fit and then run with it.

2. Make it Pun-ny

Talking of runs with it (see what we did there?!), Toilet Twinning is not afraid of a good pun. And we are here for it! We love a pun at We Are Comma. Toilet Twining use puns to great effect for topics which can be quite taboo still. They use the #bigpush to encourage their fundraisers to get those donations. And their headline fundraising initiative for World Toilet Day this year is the Big Squat – encouraging people “Squat 60 times a day from 1st of November to World Toilet Day on 19th of November and raise money for life-changing toilets!”. If that sounds to active for you, how about a piece of cake with their ‘soggy bottom bake sale’?

3. A clear target

This campaign is very clear in what your fundraising target should be. £60 – the cost of twinning a toilet. 60 squats for £60. It all adds up nicely. And it’s achievable. Getting friends and family to club together and help you raise £60 seems do-able. And the more people who think they can achieve it, the more people who will join in.

So how can you apply these lessons to your organisation, ahead of your next campaign to make it more successful?

You can find out about We Are Comma, who we are, and the services that we offer on the website. Or to start a conversation you can email or use the contact form.
Pic courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Pic showing a senior team leader with her team planning strategy
How to create a successful marketing campaign: Christmas jumper day

How to create a successful marketing campaign: Christmas jumper day

by | Dec 9, 2021 | Copywriting, Creative, Marketing, PR & Comms

How to create a successful marketing campaign: Christmas jumper day

This is the first in our irregular series looking at successful marketing campaigns and how you can create your own winning promotion.

2021 is the 10th anniversary of Save the Children’s annual fundraising Christmas jumper day. Last year the campaign raised £3m for the charity – despite all the challenges of last Christmas. So why is this campaign so successful? And most importantly, how can you recreate its achievements?

There are five key reasons Christmas jumper day is so popular.

First, it’s simple. It’s an easy-to-understand concept. Wear a Christmas jumper then donate some money for doing so. Great! Finding a similarly simple concept to promote your charity or organisation might not be so easy but it is possible. There are a few options – either you can choose a time of year that you want to focus your efforts on and pick something familiar as a ‘hook’ to hang your campaign on; Easter bonnet day for example. Or you pick something that it iconic to your brand and focus on that.

Secondly, use an item they have or are familiar with. Everyone knows what a Christmas jumper is. Many people own them. Picking a day when everyone should wear them makes it powerful. This leads into point three.

Three, make your campaign accessible. Everyone can wear a Christmas Jumper. This is one of the reasons it is so popular in schools, places of work – everywhere. Anyone and everyone can join in – if they’re willing to wear a questionable jumper. And in fact, since Christmas jumper day launched the options for more tasteful Christmas jumpers have increased. Incidentally this has been reflected in the marketing. It started as a very tongue in cheek, dodgy jumper day. But its simplicity and popularity mean it has grown to be more middle-of-the-road. Asking people to wear ballgowns, for example, will never become so popular because they are not so easy to get hold off, a good percentage of the population would rather not wear them and many people couldn’t do their job in them.

Four, make it regular. This is the 10th annual Christmas jumper day. Schools, PTAs, hospitals, community groups, local authorities – everyone knows to expect it in early December. This means they can make it part of their plan for the year.

Five, make people feel good. This is the most important part to any successful campaign. People have to feel good for taking part. Save the Children’s Christmas jumper day makes people feel good for donating to a worthy cause. And they can build excitement about the coming celebrations for Christmas. It’s a win-win. How can your organisation leverage this feel good factor? Are you a charity that people can feel good raising money for? Are you an organisation which people can volunteer for and feel good doing so? Are you a small business that can make people feel good for supporting? Find your feel good factor and use it.

What lesson from Christmas jumper day will you be taking into your campaigns in 2022?

Remember We Are Comma can help design, develop and deliver your campaigns and create success for your organisation. Email to find out how we could help you.

Pic showing a Christmas jumper pattern

Photos from Adobe Stock