The return of Red Nose Day in March marks Comic Relief’s 35th year and, in February, the brand launched its promotional campaign to build momentum ahead of the event. The marketing push, featuring the tagline “Funny is power,” was enough for Red Nose Day to register the biggest rise in its Ad Awareness score of any brand in the UK in February.
The annual charity event kicked off the 2021 campaign with a launch video starring a number of British celebrities discussing the impact that comedy had had on their lives, while the “Share a Smile” campaign (encouraging people to place their favourite joke in their window at home) was also used to whip up support for the event.
This saw the brand generate a 9.3-point rise in its Ad Awareness score (whether someone has seen or heard an advert for a brand in the past two weeks).
Red Nose Day began the month on a score of 1%, which rose rapidly following the promotional campaign’s release. By the end of the month, Red Nose Day’s Ad Awareness scores reached 10.2%.
The 2021 telethon -- which will raise money to tackle homelessness, domestic abuse and issues created by the coronavirus pandemic – branded this year’s iteration as one of the most important in its history. The overt relevance of this year’s Red Nose Day may explain the movement seen in some of the brand’s other YouGov BrandIndex metrics.
Attention scores (whether someone has heard anything positive or negative about a charity over the past two weeks) increased from 2.6 to 8.5 throughout the month, with Word-of-Mouth scores (whether someone has discussed the brand with friends or family in the past two weeks) rising by 2.4 points.
