We needed to take charitable giving off the street where it was failing to grab the attention of those unlikely to be carrying cash for rattling buckets. And they do say charity begins at home.

We identified an evening of Christmas television as a new giving moment. A moment where people are happy, keen to get into the festive spirit and have their phone close to hand.

But we needed more than a tug on the heart strings. We needed something people could feel positive about participating in to make a difference. We needed something with an event feel – entertaining first and foremost, to pave the way for donations.

Aardman Animations created the PayPal Turkey Dash - a race with eight animated turkeys. Each represented a charity, powered by donations. The more cash pledged to a certain turkey/charity, the faster their performance on the night of the big race.

We launched on Giving Tuesday on November 28th and set turkeys loose across TV, social and digital channels.

Aardman even animated TV star Scarlett Moffatt to lead Bird Bootcamp training sessions with the turkeys and remind people how to get involved. The training of each turkey was tailored to the area of expertise of each charity so the public could see how their donations were helping the birds shape up.

The charities were all off the blocks immediately, building support for their runners via their own media and networks.

Donations were valid right up?to the live event which ran during an ad break in Jamie & Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast. Commentators Steve Jones of F1 fame and Olympian Steve Cram gave the event sporting gravitas.

Captain McStuffing for the RNLI won it by a giblet. A Facebook Live event followed with all eight charities joining a PayPal hosted celebration.

No “poultry” effort:

• Turkey Dash connected to 76% of 18-34s an average seven times and 1.3M people tuned in for the race.

• PayPal charity awareness increased from 8% to 13%.

• Donate button usage rose from 26% to 33%.

• 47% of people exposed to the campaign got involved and supported a turkey.

• In total the PayPal Turkey Dash raised £177k, an increase of +978% for the eight featured charities against the same ‘Giving Tuesday’ period in 2016.

The activity deepened relationships with charity partners and has significantly increased interest from other charities wishing to get involved to make this an annual event to become as anticipated as the John Lewis Christmas ad.

It’s also established a new base of supporters for charities to continue to activate and hopefully ensure that a cashless generation can continue to keep giving.