Merry weekend, dear readers, and welcome to Society Diary's Love Island Final Charity Special!
After two mind-numbing months, the UK’s favourite ITV2 show has reached its denouement. For those who haven’t seen it, Love Island features a group of beautiful young idiots that have been forcefully coupled arguing beside a pool and pretending not to smoke for an hour every single day. This year the show has gripping the nation more than ever before, with 3.6m viewers tuning in to the final on Tuesday, and celebs such as George Osborne and Stormzy sharing their excitement on Twitter.
‘Amazing six pack’
But, I hear you ask with quivering desperation, what does this all mean for the charity sector? Have no fear, dear reader, because just after Elinor and Edward* were announced winners of series four, irritatingly capitalised consultancy nfpSynergy published two blog posts offering a full briefing for voluntary sector workers. The first, by driver of ideas Joe Saxton, is titled “Why Love Island tells charities a lot about brand and supporter care”. Here’s a key excerpt:
“Love Island is all about appearances. The participants are all beautiful with toned bodies, fantastic teeth, a great set of muscles and looks to die for […] This is why the brand, the appearance of charities matter so much. They need to be appealing and attractive, interesting and intriguing, charming and fun in order to compete for public interest, with those contestants on Love Island.”
Got it, charity sector fundraisers? You’ve got to be more interesting and intriguing than a Love Island contestant.
But Diary’s favourite passage from the blog is: “If people don’t know that you have the charity equivalent of an amazing six pack, how are they ever going to support you?”
In the other piece, Sushi Juggapah, digital content manager at CharityComms, uses the hit reality show as a springboard to discuss some pertinent issues for the sector, such as the effect of unconscious racial bias in undermining charities’ attempts to improve their diversity.
A more tenuous link is drawn between the show’s “best smoulderer” award winner Adam’s way of “cracking on” (snogging the most girls) and charities’ need to adapt to an ever-changing technological environment.
Mugged off
Charities themselves have been tapping into Love Island fever. The RSPCA posted a tweet about a pair of “loved-up lovebirds” named after the winning couple who needed a home. The post achieved almost 100 likes and retweets, but it confused and alienated some followers. One user, annoyedinfidel, contacted RSPCA to say that the birds were in fact ring-necked parakeets and not lovebirds, to which the charity had to respond to clarify it was a play-on-words.
This is a play on words as this is a Love Island themed post. Please click on the link for more information :)
— RSPCA (England & Wales) (@RSPCA_official) 31 July 2018
It’s reassuring to know that people like annoyedinfidel are around to make sure people don’t let obvious jokes get in the way of facts. The RSPCA’s original tweet said it found the birds in a “Dyer” state, a reference to contestant Dani’s surname, which Claire Moran ForgePR found “pretty tasteless”. This comes as a timely reminder for charities to tread carefully when being light-hearted on social media.
However, the RSPCA’s attempt to engage Love Island viewers went a whole lot more smoothly than the Conservative party’s. Theresa May and the lads announced on Monday a range of Love Island inspired water bottles, in the style of those used by the show’s stars. In a fresh attempt to force party politics down young people’s throats, the bottles carried slogans such as: “Don’t let Corbyn mug you off”. However, it was the Tories that ended up mugged off after they were forced to remove all references to Love Island from their competition due to potential trademark infringement.
Purrmission to land
In other news, Diary couldn’t help noticing its timeline was taken over on Thursday afternoon by photos of an eclectic list of celebrities attending Cats Protection’s National Cat Awards. Gentle rock giant Rick Wakeman, dragon Deborah Meaden, glamour model Lucy Pinder and comedian Bob Mortimer (who has a sideline in selling cat names) were all in attendance. The highlight of the event though was a presentation by 2003 band The Darkness’s singer Justin Hawkins, who talked about how his cat was reunited with him by a microchip when he was young. Apart from the picture of the adorable kitten, Diary’s was transfixed by the size of child Justin’s glasses.
Great to hear Justin Hawkins cat was reunited with him by @CatsProtection thanks to her microchip #NationalCatAwards pic.twitter.com/JPr0HNuVrt
— mandy jones (@mandysatwit) 2 August 2018
* It wasn't really Elinor and Edward. They're from Sense and Sensibility. But you knew that. Love Island was actually won by Dani and Jack.
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