ARM Reels – Animal Charity Brands Reel Review Session

For the second session of our Reel Reviews, we turned our attention to the Charity Sector – specifically Pet/Animal charities. These two combined sub-sectors account for around 20% of the overall Charity industry spend.

We picked seven brands and looked at their most expensive ads between the period of August 2023 – January 2024.

Unsurprisingly, Christmas time is when most people to tend to make the most donations, and so, Q4 is the time of year charities tend to ramp up their advertising spend.

We asked reviewers to score the ads out of five in ten different categories, from call to action’s (CTA), branding, use of talent, use of emotion and more, plus an extra box where respondents could leave comments. With that in mind, let’s look at the first one…

RSPB – Bird Watch 2024

The first ad on the list was by RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and centred around raising awareness about a specific recurring event (Birdwatch 24) rather than an overall cause. By encouraging participation, RSPB hopes to translate that not just into an increase in donations, but also to help to bridge the gap between people and nature and make them feel personally invested.

Looking at the ad itself now, the ad scored lowest in ‘Memorability’ and highest in the category of ‘Clear Voiceover’. Though the appearance of Chris Packham was appreciated by a few of the respondents and the ad was described as ‘inclusive’, it lacked a clear CTA and jump cut to “too many different scenes” a majority of the participants felt.

3.2/5

Cats Protection

Perhaps the most cinematic ad on the list, Cats Protection approaches the ad differently. Rather than relying on explanatory narration or voiceover, Cats Protection lets the ad do the talking. It’s no surprise this ad scored highest in the “Emotional Impact” category. Almost all the respondents agreed the ad was emotional, memorable, and that the use of song (instead of a Voiceover) added further emotional impact.

Where the ad let itself down, however, was in the branding categories. The lack of brand name coupled with the omission of a strong offer—brought the scoring down, though had it not been for that it may have been one of the highest scoring ads on the list.

3.1/5

Dogs Trust

Though the Dogs Trust ad does a good job at highlighting a dog as ‘man’s best friend’ it was much lighter in tone – and lighter emotionally too. Though of course emotion is very important when it comes to charity, the ads lightness doesn’t immediately disqualify it from being highly rated. Rather, the ad lost points due to its “lack of clarity” and “lack of branding”.

Unfortunately, the lack of clarity in the story, objective, and branding – led this ad to be scored the lowest amongst all the ads reviewed on the list.

3/5

Battersea Cats & Dogs Home

This ad was the shortest ad on the list and featured a more ‘brand awareness’ angle than a particular story.  Our overall Charity report found that the Charity industry does favour 60-90 second ads because it allows for more time to tell a compelling and emotional story – which is key in getting people to donate and remaining memorable in consumers’ minds.

Nevertheless, this ad scored highest in the category of “Clarity of Brand Assets”, “Clear Voiceover” and “Call to action”. The use of their logo and the colour blue throughout being a clear factor in the scoring. This ad (like the Dogs Trust one previously) was also much lighter in tone, probably to incite more positive associations with the brand. The ad fell short in the “Offer” category as respondents felt it wasn’t clear what was on offer despite the fact the CTA was clear. Some felt that had the clear voiceover been brought in earlier, there could have been room to clarify that, but despite its limited spot length, the ad still scored rather well.

3.4/5

Donkey Sanctuary

Earlier we mentioned the importance of longer spots to convey emotions and memorability and this ad excels at exactly that. Almost every respondent said this ad succeeded in delivering “emotional impact” and was memorable. The voiceover was clear, as well as the CTA and what a donor could do to help. In fact, the ad was so emotionally impactful that a few of the respondents labelled the ad as “too negative” and “too extreme”. Either way, the ad was very well received by the vast majority but it’s important to be wary of ads that might be seen as “emotionally manipulative” to get viewers to part with their money.

3.7/5

Four Paws

The most harrowing opening of all the ads on the list was this one. The screeching of the bear, coupled with the opening is very powerful and instantly makes you pay attention. The ad scored very high across the ‘Memorability’ ‘Clear Voiceover’ and ‘Call to action’ categories but overall, it scored above average in every category. Again, the 90 second slot allows for time to develop the ad and allow the emotional impact to land. The horrific opening of the ad transcends to eventually show the viewer images of bears playing after being freed and more importantly – what viewers can do to help. That takes viewers on an emotional journey, which helps leave a long-lasting effect on a viewer.

Th consistent branding was also apparent throughout, to make this ad our runner-up (albeit only marginally).

3.8/5

World Animal Protection

This ad was voted the overall winner, narrowly edging out the Four Paws ad. The mixture of different animals featured in the ad no doubt helped, and the ad again scored extremely well across the ‘Emotional Impact’ ‘Memorability’ ‘Clear Voiceover’ and ‘Clarity of Proposition’ categories. One thing that was especially called out in the comments was the use of looping footage to symbolise the repetition the animal was facing. Seeing the Tiger endlessly move tied to a chain and the bear shaking from side to side in a cage coupled with the music and the voiceover, made for an emotionally difficult viewing experience. Many respondents deemed both this ad and the previous one as “hard to watch”.

Though the ad did feature its logo halfway through the ad, there was a suggestion it could have scored higher in the ‘Clarity of Brand Assets’ category had they used/showcased their own staff in the ad or animals being freed/treated by their workers in a similar way to how the previous two charities did. It’s no surprise the ads that scored best were all 90-second spots, which confirms our finding from our Charity Report that longer ads effectively “anchor” in your memory and can improve image recall, whilst also delivering higher emotional impact and engagement.

3.9/5