Marketing and Communications Year End Final Report

September 2013 – August 2014

The Canadian Women’s Foundation has completed year3 of our original 3-year plan to begin building public awareness for the Canadian Women’s Foundation and the issues most critical to women and girls in Canada.

Year 1
(2011/12) / Year 2
(2012/13) / Year 3
(2013/14)
Build organizations readiness for strategic marketing through launch of: new brand, messaging, website, PR program, brand campaign, social media and refreshed donor communications. / Expand and deepen all PR, digital and brand strategies, develop story telling approach to communication and rebrand annual campaign to end violence. / Significantly increase voice, expand PR, digital and brand strategies, launch initial efforts to spark public engagement vs. marketing, include a younger secondary target market and introduce simplified, bolder messaging.

Year 3Overall Results vs. Goal:

FY 2012/13 Goal / 2013/2014 Final Results / Percentage Increase
Increase annual press coverage media impressions by 20%
(from 200,931,082 annual) / 201,832,874media impressions / 4.5% increase
NOTE: We did not meet the 20% increase for the year for two reasons:
  1. We had planned for a Trafficking Omnibus release to be followed by the released of the report. However the reports were not finalized and the date of the final report changed several times therefore we cancelled the Trafficking Omnibus because it was no longer timely as months had passed and public opinion polls could have changed.
  2. Additionally, with the shortage of staff we asked Edelman to step up their role (specifically to support us in our Trafficking work) but since our budget was set we had to cut down our proactive media outreach significantly.

Increase annualadvertising impressions by 3%from 414,764,323ad impressions
$2.48 million in ad value
Ad spend: $175,159 / 377,488,881 ad impressions
$2.49 million in ad value
Ad spend: $174,437 / Impressions: -8%
Ad value: 0.2%
NOTE: Impressions from two ad partners were inconsistent related to value year over year causing a variance in impressions. We also saw that some partners were not able to offer the same level of donated space in 2014. We have adjusted our goals for the 2014/15 year to reflect that, and are working to both maximize ROI with current partners and identify new partners.
Increase annual social media engagement by 50%
(from 4,058 Facebook fans &
5,041 Twitter followers) / 7,044Facebook fans
9,089 Twitter followers / FB: 74%
Twitter: 80%
Increase website traffic by 20%
(from 15,107 unique users/month) / 22,322 unique users/month average / 47%
Increase web donations by 15%
(from $4,820/month average) / $10,004 /month average / 108%
NOTE: $30,821 was donated to the Beverly Wybrow Fund. If we discount these funds the monthly average raised online was $7,436 which is a 54% increase.
Increase newsletter subscriptions by 25%
(from 12,997)) / 15,578 subscribers / 20% increase
NOTE: The e-newsletters had a diverse focus throughout the year. Starting in June, we put out 2 e-newsletters focusing on trafficking which was around the time we saw a decrease in subscribers. Some people sent in feedback expressing concern that we are focusing too much on trafficking and moving away from our other areas of work (the brand campaign was released at the same time and also focused on trafficking). However, with the August & September e-newsletters focusing on Girls and Violence Prevention, we have seen an increase in subscribers.

Brand Awareness Highlights (see attached report for details)

  • Overall brand awareness did not change significantly over the last year.
  • The highest profile charities against which we are measuring ourselves all experienced a statistically significant decrease in awareness over the last year (United Way: 52% to 48%; Cdn. Breast Cancer Foundation: 49% to 43%; YWCA Canada: 31% to 29%; Boys and Girls Clubs (26% to 21%). Decreases were even more significant among our target audience.
  • We did see a rise just after the Campaign to end Violence, but timing of the most recent brand awareness survey occurred just as the brand campaign was about to launch, so we cannot measure its impact on brand awareness (normally we would do an ad recall survey immediately after the brand campaign but we did not have the budget for it this year).
  • Among members of our target audience who are familiar with the Foundation, favourable opinion decreased significantly: from 48% to 32%. The most significant decrease occurred in the spring and summer of 2014 (a 14% decrease).

Thank you to our National Marketing Committee and Board of Directors for their support and leadership and thank you to the cross-functional staff team for their collective efforts to help achieve these results.