This month’s Brand Spotlight looks at how the British Heart Foundation’s brand has fared among the public in the year between October 2012 and September 2013.
The charity enjoys a high profile in part because it is often featured adding context to medical studies, meaning it is consistently in the news. Thanks to the efforts of its communications team, in the past year they have contributed their expert views to a range of news stories about medical studies, boosting both the charity’s profile and also putting medical studies into a context the public can understand. In the past year these have included a study that found diabetes fuelled the risk of heart failure, how a good night's sleep can help protect the heart and the ways in which chemicals in red meat can damage the heart.
It is clear that different age groups respond to the charity in different ways. Its Index score is healthiest among the 50+ demographic – indeed, over the past year, for all but two brief occasions, it has been the strongest age group for the British Heart Foundation. The over-50s average +35.9 over the time scale covered, hitting a peak of +39.6 on Christmas Eve and a low of +32.8 in late August. By comparison, the average Index score for 35-49 year olds is +32.2 and among the under-35s is +29.1.
Particularly interesting is that during the activity around the “Rock Up In Red” fundraising day in February – which included celebrity endorsements and consumer news stories – its Index scores among 35-49 year-olds increased. The British Heart Foundation’s overall brand health among this group improved from +31.1 on 4th January to +37.3 on 13th February. In the same period, the scores for the under-35s and over-50s stayed relatively stable.
British Heart Foundation Index score – by age, 4 January – 8 April 2013
This is an abridged version of a longer piece written exclusively for Third Sector. The full article can be read on the Third Sector website.
More information about YouGov's CharityIndex can be found here.
Image courtesy of Getty
