Making Charity Donations Easier with Alexa

Backed by Innovate UK, Say It Now and Octave Audio joined forces with a series of charitable partners to make it easier for people to make charity donations via Alexa, the smart speaker device.

The pandemic has shaken the charity sector to its core; donations have dropped during a time of economic downturn and fundraising events have been cancelled due to social distancing restrictions (source: Civil Society). This impact has been compounded by the fact that, during the pandemic, the move towards a cashless society has accelerated; charities in the UK and worldwide take more than 50% of their donations in cash (source Charities Aid Foundation). Say It Now and Octave believed they could help mitigate this significant fundraising shortfall by raising awareness and driving donations – all by using Actionable Audio Advertising to target listeners and engage with them via simple, interactive means that only required the listener to use short voice commands. We effectively targeted a record number of radio listeners through Actionable Audio Adverts. Our results showed that when listeners engaged with the Actionable Audio Advert on smart speakers, the outcome was overwhelmingly positive, with many audiences engaging and showing positive intent. This project enabled the charities to effectively raise awareness of their cause and drive immediate donations. The charitable partners we worked with included: NSPCC, Crisis UK and Macmillan. The campaigns ran between August and November 2021.