Macmillan Cancer Support has been named top charity brand of 2013 by YouGov, which measured people’s perceptions of different charities throughout the year.

YouGov questioned a representative sample of 125 different people each day about charities they had heard of and talked about recently and whether they were ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It turned this into ‘buzz’ scores which it used to rank charities.

Macmillan was 5.5 points ahead of its nearest rival, Help for Heroes, with a buzz score of 19.7.

Gavin Ellison, consulting public sector director at YouGov, highlighted Macmillan’s launch of the Not Alone campaign as a reason for its success. He said: “The way different activity  reverberates with different groups of people that perhaps previously would not have expected to engage with the charity shows that Macmillan has first-rate campaign tactics to go alongside its strong long-term brand strategy.”

Macmillan’s flagship fundraising campaign, World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, experienced another record-breaking year and raised £20m. Macmillan also launched three mass-participation events in 2013 – A Good Night In in April, Dress Up and Dance in March and Go Sober for October in the autumn.

Cancer Research UK came third with a buzz score of 13.8. Having launched new branding at the end of 2012, CRUK also launched two mass participation events last year - Dryathlon in January and The IN Thing in October. It also agreed a five-year partnership with Channel 4 after the first Stand Up To Cancer telethon raised £8m.

In January’s issue of Fundraising Celina Ribeiro spoke to CRUK director of fundraising, Richard Taylor, and others about building an effective charity brand.

YouGov CharityIndex 2013 rankings

1. Macmillan Cancer Support
2. Help for Heroes
3. Cancer Research UK
4. British Heart Foundation
5. RNLI
6. British Red Cross
7. Dogs Trust
8. Guide Dogs for the Blind
9. Royal British Legion
10. Marie Curie Cancer Care