Business as Unusual.

 

A snapshot of global change in DRTV and digital fundraising.

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Context

We live in unprecedented times. With so much changing in the world today, there is an ongoing and increasingly urgent need for effective fundraising. In a climate of uncertainty and stress, the missions of good causes are under threat at a time when they are most needed. This brief paper is to share what we are learning so that our clients and the wider fundraising world can deploy stretched budgets effectively.

Like all businesses, out teams are currently working from home across the UK, mainland Europe, India, Hong Kong, Korea and Australia. We are fortunate to being used to remote working.

Topline issues

In times of uncertainty, it’s easy to do nothing. Neither fight, nor flight, but freeze. In terms of the public, we wondered if people might bunker down and stop giving. They haven’t. What we have seen instead is that in extreme times, there are many acts of extreme kindness and extreme generosity.

We have seen an increase in response rates to some of our campaigns in countries where lockdown measures are in place; notably in Korea, driven we believe by two factors.

First, and obviously, people are at home more and viewing daytime TV and digital channels more.

Secondly, isolation can leave one feeling dis-empowered and disconnected. Effective fundraising empowers people by offering them the opportunity to do something meaningful. DRTV and digital appeals are giving people the opportunity to do so.

We are monitoring the media environment closely. As commercial advertisers reduce spend (travel, leisure, retail), we have seen, we are seeing and we expect to see some softening of the media across each of the various states. This is likely to be advantageous for anyone still buying broadcast media, including not-for-profit causes.

In terms of the logistics of telephone response we expect any disruption to be over quickly (our own teams in the UK at DTV Optimise and in India have already moved to almost entirely home working, with a small amount of essential work continuing on site).

Individual markets

We treat all client data confidentially, and so the following are trends and snapshots we have observed in our campaigns worldwide. Of course, the situation is evolving daily, and so we will update this information each month.

There are two key issues here: media costs and viewers’ responsiveness.

Media costs: we are already seeing a softening of the media market worldwide. This means that media budgets go further. This, of course, has a positive effect in terms of all the key DRTV metrics: reducing cost per donor, increasing ROI, and thus increasing lifetime value.

While we are cautious about generalisations, we see that overall responses are holding firm and better as there is more of a TV audience available and at a reduced cost.

In the UK, where limits on social movement are recent though increasingly enforced:

  • we have already seen seen room for greater negotiation in terms of media costs.

  • One new client launching last month has been better than expected response.

  • March responses for campaigns with regular giving and lottery propositions were broadly up on Jan/Feb figures.

  • we have seen a one-month dip in PSMS response. We can’t say yet if it’s a trend.

In major European markets, including Germany and Italy, for causes with an ongoing significant level of spend we have seen responses at worst holding firm, and at best increasing week-on-week throughout March when the virus really started to hit hard.

In Hong Kong and Korea, where the lockdown was swift and comprehensive, we have seen an increase in the volumes of response.

In Australia, there are similar trends in terms of media and responsiveness.

In India, viewing time for television increased by over 70 billion minutes in a week.

What happens next?

Predicting the future is tough, even in the best of times. However, based on what we know so far we expect:

  • Increasing numbers of causes considering DRTV/digital as other forms of fundraising close down (f2f, door2door, charity shops, mass participation events). There is evidence of this in all of the markets mentioned above, plus Canada and the US.

  • The scaling up of campaigns from causes already on air.

  • More emergency campaigns linked either to the virus or to the threat of ongoing work posed by the decline in income from sources that are no longer available.

  • It is important that these should always be set within the context of the coronavirus, i.e. what is it about the specific need and impact of the cause and its mission that is affected by the current circumstances? Focus on The Why; why should someone care and give now?

  • Even causes with well-drilled emergency protocols will need to allow more time that usual to create emergency appeals. Remote working, remote creative development, and remote approvals and sign-offs all need to be allowed for.

Your experience?

If you could like to share your views and experiences, please feel free to contact any of us.

Peter Muffett, peter.muffett@dtvgroup.co.uk, Angie Brooker, angie.brooker@dtvgroup.co.uk, Chris Dickens, chris.dickens@dtvgroup.co.uk, Alex Daniel, alex.daniel@dtvgroup.asia, Derek Humphries, derek.humphries@dtvgroup.co.uk

 
Debora Montesoro