Initials return for more Comic Relief work with Sainsbury’s

Sainsbury’s has appointed Initials Marketing to help activate its colleague fundraising campaign as part of its planned fundraising activity for Red Nose Day 2013. It marks the fifth year in a row the agency has been brought on board to implement the retailer’s Comic Relief fundraising activity.

Sainsbury’s is Comic Relief’s largest corporate partner, having raised over £63.5 million since 1999, with much of this coming directly from colleague fundraising activities. Initials Marketing will be responsible for creating an innovative, one stop fundraising toolkit for Sainsbury’s colleagues which brings together Sainsbury’s and Red Nose Day design themes. Approximately 1,250 kits will be distributed to stores, depots and store support centres to help over 150,000 colleagues raise money for Red Nose Day 2013. The kit, which will act as the key communication tool for colleagues, will include fundraising hints and tips, posters and a range of other supporting materials to get colleagues excited and spur them onto fundraising for Red Nose Day 2013.

Katherine How, Comic Relief sponsorship manager at Sainsbury’s, said: “Our colleagues really get in to the spirit of fundraising and love the wide variety of opportunities that Comic Relief provides. Over the past four years, Initials Marketing has designed a great kit which has helped colleagues to get excited and engaged with fundraising activities. It therefore was a natural decision to ask them to help come up with really creative ideas for the campaign this time for Red Nose Day 2013. The fundraising toolkit really gets our colleagues creative juices flowing, driving their enthusiasm and contributes enormously towards our overall fundraising efforts. We can’t wait to see how the activity unfolds and see the fundraising total rise.”

Lucy Savage, director at Initials Marketing, added: “The colleague campaign contributes around £2million each year towards Sainsbury’s fundraising pot. Not only that, but it also offers a great opportunity to engage colleagues and for them to educate customers through instore conversation. So it’s an incredibly important campaign. We’re delighted to have been invited to help activate the campaign for Sainsbury’s for a fifth year in a row and have already sprung into action to make this the best year yet.”