Direct > Sectors
FCB INFERNO, London / BARNARDO'S / 2017
Overview
Credits
CampaignDescription
We were inspired by Barnardo’s children; they were proud and optimistic about their future, not the victims people were used to seeing.
So we turned them from victims to heroes, telling their amazing stories of transformation and making sure their voice is heard. Their stories ended with the direct ask delivered by the child to “Believe in Me”. This became our line and creative idea.
The films feature five children stepping into spaces representing their past. Using powerful performances, they demonstrate that no matter what they’ve been through, a brighter future awaits. They are proud, defiant and optimistic, behaving in a way people are not used to seeing in charity comms.
When a vulnerable child asks you directly to ‘Believe in Me’, it is almost impossible to turn away. And when that message is delivered from a child it provokes a feeling of hope and optimism in the viewer.
Execution
The hero film launched simultaneously on TV, online and in cinema featuring the stories of five Barnardo’s children representing different priority service areas (including Child Sexual Exploitation and Fostering) and driving online.
Our website and social media told the individual stories of each child and linked them to a specific action that could help. We also created two full-length films; shot in a single take; for the gymnast and ballerina that allowed people to engage in more depth. Print advertising also told individual stories.
Once people had engaged with us digitally, they were retargeted with digital display and social advertising that would drive them to donate.
Our heroes also featured across Barnardo’s 600 retail stores, asking people to show they believed by donating stock.
Direct Mail was also used to target prospects.
The campaign launched in late September 2016 and ran until December. There is more to come in 2017.
Outcome
The campaign has made a major difference for Barnardo’s in a short time:
- 1.4m new warm fundraising leads generated
- This group are 13x more likely to engage with follow-up activity
- Believe in Me has delivered over £1m in incremental income through donations and additional stock generated through retail in just three months
- 6% jump in brand awareness
- 41% of people were more likely to donate as a result of seeing the campaign
- We reached an audience of 122m with our message
- Generated 6x more social engagement than any previous marketing activity
- The campaign attracted a significantly younger audience into the charity and had particular success in building a relationship with the South Asian audience.
Relevancy
Barnardo’s “Believe in Me” campaign has built a new and unique relationship with the British public. Rather than yet another charity asking for donations, the campaign lets Barnardo’s children directly ask the public for their belief. This belief has manifested itself as new digital prospects that are warmer to the cause and increased fundraising income for the charity.
This approach has increased support among our core audience and broadened support into younger and more ethnically diverse groups.
The intention of the campaign was twofold: (1) identifying new digital prospects and (2) converting them to donation.
Strategy
Charitable donations in the UK are down by 27% in ten years. People were getting good at saying no to charities and Barnardo’s were under pressure.
We needed to grow beyond our core audience. This meant engaging a younger and more ethnically diverse audience, without alienating our core demographic. Research showed that this younger audience were turned off by negative messages and open to messages of hope and optimism. Neuroscience identified that ‘awe’ was a high activation emotion that would trigger people’s charitable intention by triggering oxytocin release. This would make us highly distinctive in the category.
We would rebuild the emotional relationship with Barnardo’s with highly emotive film content ending with children asking for belief. This would drive people to interact further in the digital world, allowing us to start building a relationship that would allow us to retarget with fundraising activity, as they grew warmer to the brand.
Synopsis
Barnardo’s is the UK’s biggest children’s charity and in 2016 celebrated 150 years of helping the nation’s most vulnerable children. They support over 250,000 children and parents across 996 services.
Given the importance and scale of their work, Barnardo’s is surprisingly low on people’s radar when it comes to choosing a charity to support and there was little emotional connection.
Compassion fatigue has also made it harder to gain support from the public. They are desensitised to the problems in the world through the prevalence of negative imagery in the media and this has made them very good at avoiding the multiple charitable asks they are faced with everyday.
Our objectives were:
1. Build a stronger emotional relationship with the British public
2. Drive a digital engagement that will allow us to identify prospects and retarget
3. Convert them to donation
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