Charity marketing: a blood sport?

I was at a lunch for charity marketing people a few months ago where one press officer was bragging about the power of their latest very expensive TV advert. He was thrilled by the journalists’ reaction at a preview showing: “We had one woman in tears and the guy from the Mirror couldn’t even sit through it all” said the delighted public relations officer from a leading children’s charity. Now the advertising watchdog the ASA has warned that the do-gooders are getting out of hand with record complaints from the public, up from 577 to nearly 1,500 this year.