Key Highlights from Medialab’s Q2 Charity Sector Insights Report

To ensure our charity clients remain informed and up-to-date with industry trends, the Medialab data science team has been producing a quarterly Charity Sector Insights Report since Q4 2021 – highlighting key trends and insights across the sector, alongside top-level implications and recommendations.

 

Our Q2 2024 research is now live. For more information, get in touch with our Marketing Effectiveness team, via the following email: datascienceteam@mlold.lucidgraphics.co.uk

Below are our key insights and critical implications for charities.

 

Key Takeouts

 

1. The UK Economic outlook has improved considerably with inflation hitting the BoE’s 2% target (down 75% YoY), a 3% increase in OECD’s consumer confidence to 99.5 and the emergence from a technical recession. Additionally, wage growth continues to outpace price increases and there are expectations of an interest rate cut in Q3.

2. Paired with the positive outlook for the future, Consideration to donate increased to 17.8 (+1%) reaching the same level observed in Q2 2019, despite a reduction in media investment* of 12% to £83M (£94M in Q2 2023). All age groups over 35+ reported an increase in Consideration, while declines are still observed within the 18-34 age group where awareness remains a key challenge.

3. In the first half of this year, there’s been disinvestment in digital (-21%) and press (-18%), while spend increased in OOH (+58%) and Radio (+10%). In Q2, TV investment was consistently down around 9% to £48M despite an increase in the number of charities using the channel.

4. The products that charities chose to promote is also changing. H1 2024 saw a greater focus on communications around Legacy (£24.7M; +9%) and Lottery (£3.1M; +88%) offerings at the expense of Committed Giving (£41.7M; -10%). While Brand media is also down 14% to £19.9M, it has grown significantly between 2021-23. ​

 

Implications for Charities

 

1. Charities should seek to capitalise on the improving economic situation given more people are expecting their financial situation to improve over the next 12 months. Emotive-led messaging is still key, as, despite the outlook, the ability to give is hampered by the aftermath of record-high living costs, therefore the role of emotive messaging to encourage reasons to donate is still just as important.

2. While younger demographics may not be experiencing improvements in economic outlook, there remains a growing challenge in terms of re-engagement. Charities should capitalise on growing consideration and refocus CRM and retargeting activity on the 55+ age group.

3. There is some comfort in the fact that media inflation has also stabilised with observed 2024 prices in line with last year. Charities may have shifted their channel mix in anticipation of political parties advertising on certain channels during the election period, and this may have changed the share of voice for certain charities.

4. In addition to the channel mix considerations above, charities will also need to factor in the mix of products they feature. The growth in Brand media investment since 2021 indicates that many charities are looking to build a competitive edge through emotive messaging to capitalise on the anticipated economic and Consideration improvements mentioned above.

 

For more information, get in touch with our Marketing Effectiveness team, via the following email: datascienceteam@mlold.lucidgraphics.co.uk

 

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