Battle of the Brands - RockCorps vs v

Looks like the heat is most definitely on in the world of youth volunteering. Following the huge success of their inaugural outing in the UK last year, new kids on the block RockCorps have recently announced two gigs for this year, the first to be held in July with Lady Gaga as the first of their headline acts. Gaga is the pop act of the moment and will no doubt provide a massive incentive for many teenagers and young adults to come forward and volunteer for the first time. RockCorps have also managed to repeat their media partnership with Channel 4 who will be broadcasting content about volunteering and the gigs on their prime time youth slot T4. With the other concert planned for September, RockCorps has already raised the stakes this year and I for one can’t wait. With this sort of exposure youth volunteering is really going mainstream - I know that there a large number of young people that are already buzzing about it – and this is exactly what we had in mind at the Russell Commission.

Things are also warming up at youth volunteering charity v. They’ve recently announced grime star Bashy as an ambassador for the forthcoming national vinspired awards. Bashy may not have the chart and public profile of Lady Gaga but he does have a strong fan base and is much more underground and likely to appeal to young people who shun the mainstream. v have also announced the appointment of Shine Communications to execute a digital and traditional PR campaign. I don’t know Shine but their brand portfolio seems impressive – youth brands include computer games giant EA – and frankly anything that helps them to move on from ‘Favours’ gets my vote, although I wonder if the £100k budget v has made available is really enough to have a big national impact. In addition v have signed up creative agency Cake, who I know are very cool and who will no doubt come up with some pretty exciting design for them.

So this year it looks as though we’ll see a bit of a bun fight out there, with both organisations competing for the time and attention of 16-25 year olds throughout the country. My money is on RockCorps. Given their success last year I can only see their national campaign getting bigger and bigger. But v seem to be heading in the right direction and having controversial acts like Bashy supporting their awards event later this year should go some way to generating some main stream media coverage.

But will it be enough? It seems increasingly likely that we will have a change of government next year. Nick Hurd, the shadow minister for charities and volunteering, has publicly criticized v on a number of occasions, calling it a top down ‘vanity project’ for the current government with questionable impact at a local level, which suggests that he may well seek to dissolve it should he have the opportunity. I think that v really needs to up its game in the public arena to combat this perception, ensuring that the programme has such a high profile that closing it down becomes an unpopular decision that any new government would wish to avoid.

And do we need two different brands competing for the same market? Personally I don’t think we do, and perhaps v should just get together with RockCorps - combine the Corps’ ability to secure corporate sponsorship and high level media exposure with v’s infrastructure and investment capacity and I reckon you’d have a real force for good that no future government would dare to tamper with.

Posted by Jamie Thomas, CEO Red Foundation