The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has joined former Whitewater clients RSPCA and NSPCC in being forced into a review of its marketing account – worth an estimated £2.5m – following the demise of the agency.
The charity is understood to have contacted a number of agencies about the review, which covers the fundraising account. It was previously split between Whitewater and Proximity London.
Whitewater was forced to close when parent company the Involve Marketing Partnership hit the financial rocks, after a £7m refinancing deal with Barclays Capital. Whitewater, which was the group’s charity specialist, went down first, but the whole group later collapsed under the weight of debt. Subsidiary businesses United, DMS and Millennium were flogged off and remain operational.
Whitewater also worked for NSPCC and the RSPCA, which are both now reviewing, MS Society, Macmillan, and Breast Cancer Breakthrough.
Proximity has worked with the RNLI for the past decade, picking up the DMA Awards grand prix in 2009 for a campaign targeting youngsters. It is understood this was the most recent large-scale push.
The 24-hour search and rescue service, which has more than 444 lifeboats at 236 life stations around the coast of the UK and Ireland, the needs to raise £140m each year to keep above water. The RNLI’s lifeboats rescued an average of 22 people a day in 2011.
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