Why give blood? : an analysis of the blood bank's donor recruitment campaign

Abstract

This dissertation is an analyses of the blood donor recruitment campaign of the National Blood Transfusion Centre. Interviews with the heads of the two blood banks yielded the fact that Malta follows similar trends in blood donation as other countries. Since the Banks rely completely on voluntary donors it has to convince more people to donate regularly. Social marketing using mainly communications tools such as the media, is required to achieve this aim. Qualitative data was then gathered from focus groups with regular and irregular donors participating in order to analyse the strategy being used by the centre to attract donors. The results indicate that doors give blood because they believe that it is their duty to do so, but are aware of the difficulties to convince others to start donating. The important role of the media to inform the public about the need for blood donors was also expressed. The conclusions reached were that the blood bank must implement a marketing and communications strategy based on current social marketing and communications theories; launch a PR and media campaign; publish new posters and brochures; and make changes to indicated operations that convey a negative image.