Journal Entry 5: CLIC Sargent at Tesco

While watching TV at my flat here in London, I was subject to yet another example of media for social change. This campaign for social improvement was intermixed into an ad for the local discount grocery store here in London, Tesco. The average television consumer would think they are watching an ad for Tesco but in fact they are being subject to a social media campaign while watching their daily television. The ad appeared at the very end of a normal advertisement for Tesco. The ad was for Tesco’s support for the charity CLIC Sargent. CLIC Sargent is the UK’s leading children’s cancer charity and their mission is to research treatments to provide hope and care for the UK’s sick children. Upon further research into the correlation between Tesco and CLIC, I discovered that CLIC is actually the chosen charity of the year by Tesco for the year 2010. How might Tesco actually be helping this charity? I came to discover that Tesco is actually aiming to raise 5 million pounds for the CLIC Sargent charity. The money they raise will, “help fund specialist children’s cancer nurses so that children with cancer can spend more time at home and less time in hospital.” The money they hope to raise will be done by product promotions in their stores where if a customer buys selected items, a portion of those sales goes straight to the charity. Tesco and CLIC have even come together to create a comprehensive website together where the Tesco shopper can log online and donate immediately.

The link for their website is: http:/www.clicsargent-tesco.org.uk.

Tesco has created a telephone hotline as well to assist in their donations. The target audience for this specific campaign is mostly aimed toward mothers. Mothers have children of their own who they watch over and try to protect from illness and are the direct consumers due to the fact they are the primary Tesco shopper. Overall, these two large organizations teaming up together like this is a recipe for success. They are able to pull funds, media outlets and raise double the amount of money by working together. At the end of the day, the target audience might in fact be mothers but with Tesco’s well-known name and avid media use on television, the ad for CLIC Sargent has wide coverage and can spawn all television viewers.