Working on the Strand it is difficult to walk to and from Charing Cross or Trafalgar Square without being acosted by Big Issue sellers or 'charity beggars'.  I won't focus too much on the Big Issue chaps (it's nearly always men) but instead on the young people trying to get you signed up to their charity.

It's always struck me as a terrible way to market your cause as it's one of the crudest forms of interruption marketing.  Their attempts are unanticipated, impersonal and largely irrelevant.  What's more they're often attempted at a time when you are by and large trying to get as far away from there as possible (mostly to get the train home).

Now suffice to say I'm heavily anti this type of marketing as I feel it often does far more harm to the charity in terms of reputation than they can ever make in donations.  However, I'd like to put that to one side for a minute and talk instead about the effectiveness of their strategy.  For you see the ever interesting Dan Ariely conducted an experiment recently on effective begging strategies.

I think the experiment applies equally to charity beggars so I'll apply it here too.  To cut a long story short, he got an acting student to try out various strategies for getting passers by to give him money.

To begin with he was sat down and passively asking for money.  Very little success was achieved wtih this approach.  He then tried standing up and looking them in the eyes.  Much more success this time.

However the best approach was arrived at after advice from a fellow beggar 'working' that same street.  The 'professional' told them to not only walk up to passers by but attempt to shake them by the hand.  Once he was shaking someones hand eye contact was an inevitable consequence, and this coupling made it much more likely that a donation would be made.

They found that people often avert their gaze from those in need, be they homeless people or charity fundraisers, and if they don't see them then they don't help them.  If we're forced to pay attention however then we're much more likely to help out.

Hopefully this won't cotton on however as they are still uber annoying.