Room to Read makes the Big Book Swap the new Book Club

Room to Read supports a cause very close to my heart (children’s literacy in the developing world), and is an organisation I am proud to support. Their premise is simple, clear to understand and significant: World change starts with educated children.

In recent months, my close group of girlfriends from school – whom I love dearly and who, lucky for me, I still get to see on a regular basis – have started a bit of a book club. It’s basically just another excuse to meet up over a bottle of wine, share good food and a good old gossip but, as well-educated young women, we also love a good read. And, we came to realise, we don’t read enough.

Well, imagine if we couldn’t read at all? Imagine if our fathers insisted that as soon as we were old enough to work in the local village, we dropped out of school and earned a decent wage instead? What if we couldn’t get to a school because it was so darn far away? Or because we had to look after our pain-in-the-ass younger brother instead?

I’m not going to get all charidee on you, but it’s worth thinking about, which is why I think Room to Read’s Big Book Swap is such a genius invention.

As a fundraising mechanism, it is a completely fluid concept, which is namely, this: instead of all going out and buying brand new copies of the same book, take your £8.99 (let’s round it up to £10) and put it in a central Big Book Swap pot for Room to Read. Then bring along a well-loved, well-read copy of your favourite book, and share that with the group instead. You learn a little bit more about each other’s past, reading habits and experience, you hopefully get introduced to a brand new title and you get the fuzzy warm glow of having given to charity.

And get this: every £10 you raise (give or take, that’s the price of one shiny new book in the UK) will buy you TEN local language books in Africa. TEN.

What’s not to love about that?

You can set up a small Big Book Swap with three of your closest friends. Or you can set up a table at work and get the whole building involved over the course of a day. You could host a fun singles evening at your local pub (bonus: all attendees will have at least one thing in common from the get-go, a love of books) or even a tea party for your kids and their friends after work. Take the concept into your school, university, office building or local sports club.

Or just use it as another excuse for a bottle of wine and a gossip.

But find a way to do it. The official day is Tuesday 29th March, and thy want to see as many events happening on that day as possible, but don’t be restricted by the day – the important thing is that you get involved. And to find out how to get your dosh to the nice folks at Room to Read (and to tell them about what a rip-roaring success your event was afterwards), email london@roomtoread.org.

And come and tell us what you think on Facebook too.

Jack Willy, Jack Wills and what to do when passing off is all in the name of charity

It is no secret to this blog – and to pretty much anyone that knows me – that I am a long-time, ardent fan of Jack Wills.

So this evening, when I started to pick up tweets about Jack Willy for the first time – a brand new charity initiative in support of prostate cancer awareness – I initially thought, bravo JW for having enough gumption and banter around their own brand values to create a tongue-in-cheek charity campaign.

Or so I thought.

After a bit of digging on the site it became apparent that they are ‘BTW, NOT Jack Wills‘ and are instead playing on the renowned middle class clothing brand’s wide appeal. And, in for a penny, in for a pound, the site invokes JW’s look, feel, font, tag-line (‘outfitters for the general’ – rather than gentry), image/model look style and web design.

They’re hot on Twitter, they engage with their posse of fans on Facebook – they even run an ‘Ambassador‘ program whereby enthusiastic consumers of their clothing can earn themselves free stash by being photographed in the gear and posting their shots back to the brand. Any of this sounding familiar?

Now whether you’re a fan of the original brand or not, this led me to thinking: as a brand manager or owner, what would I do? I’m in charge of a hugely successful, internationally expanding, young, influential fashion label and a charity initiative sets up for a very worthy cause, riding on the coat tails of my brand’s image (and poking a little fun in its ribs at the same time). How do I feel about this? What are my options?

I figure they are, namely, these:

1) Do nothing

2) Do nothing – yet. Ride it out. It’s a start-up so wait and see what kind of following it gets (and what comments you get as a result) before making any move. (It’s got them this blog post for a start…)

3) Be reactively supportive. When fans, consumers or press ask the question, ‘So whad’ya make of all this Jack Willy stuff then?’, respond with a reasonably non-committal ‘We think their cause is an incredibly worthy one and we wish them all the best.’ Or even something a tad more engaged such as ‘and we’re honoured they saw the value in the Jack Wills brand to help promote awareness for their campaign’. But kept fairly at arm’s length and not promoting an association

4) Be proactively supportive. Seek out the organisers and reach out to them. Discover more about the set-up and explore the option of an official partnership. In an if-you-can’t-beat-em-join-em kinda way. Cross-promotion could work in your favour (though on first impression from the site, significantly TBC whether the Jack Willy gang would want an official JW stamp or seal of approval.)

5) Be privately opposed. The public voice decries any association with the charity – no negative comments per se, but making it clear there is no connection. Privately, approach with a view to enforcing a stronger message of complete independence from the JW brand in order to put an end to the passing off (which, frankly, it undeniably is as it took me at least 5 minutes to find the ‘NOT Jack Wills’ statement. Granted it was mobile web, but I’m not exactly web illiterate)

6) Be publicly opposed. Dangerous territory, but if a brand feels its values have been compromised, sometimes it should go all out to protect those. Harder if it’s a worthy cause, but if it were an organisation of deplorable or questionable (or competitive) intent, a brand wouldn’t hesitate. Just because it’s for ‘charidee’, should it act differently?

Of course, it might all be a double bluff, and maybe the Northern Irish founders really do have a link to JW. Maybe Pete Williams gave his blessing. But it doesn’t look that way to me. And whatever stance the brand takes, they should decide a position fast because the questions will come – if they haven’t already.

 

Jack WILLS Spring look (that's WILLS. With an S.)

 

So what would I do? I’d rule out #6 immediately – the cause is far too worthy and the objective well-meaning to bring in the heavies. For the time being, I’d also avoid #5, but consider a conversation in this territory later down the line if a supportive angle is decided against. Your brand equity is your livelihood – regardless of the well-meaning nature of potential impostors.

It’s probably too early days for #4 and you would need buy-in and weighty consideration from all stake-holders within the organisation before going down this route. But it’s not out of the question. So I think my take would be a combination of #2 and #3 – with a skew towards the latter. As a light-hearted, fun-loving brand, unofficially supporting these guys would be a strong way to demonstrate not taking yourselves too seriously.

Whatever happens, don’t do #1. Even if, at the very least, you prepare an internal reactive brand position to respond to queries in this area. Silence is damaging – especially for a brand whose lifeblood is its highly engaged dialogue with its avid fan base. They will ask, and a brand always needs a (consistent) answer.

And in the meantime, go buy yourself a Jack Willy hoodie. Go on. It’s for a good cause.