To reveal the hidden face of poverty in Canada, we launched the campaign “Poverty Isn’t Easy To See”.

The goal was to reveal the true nature of poverty – that it lives in our neighbourhoods, just down the street and more often than not, with a roof over its head.

In spring, an “Open House” exhibit was staged in a residential neighbourhood. It provided an authentic, immersive experience with visual displays that highlighted poverty facts. Over 40 hidden cameras filmed people’s reactions to create a :90sec video on The Salvation Army’s website, YouTube and Facebook pages.

Website visitors could take a 360-virtual tour of the home to uncover stats related to poverty. Traffic was driven through links in web banners and in our online video.

In November, film, print and radio launched the second phase of the campaign. On The Salvation Army’s Facebook page, we utilised 360 images to reveal a side of the holidays that most of us never see. At first glance, our posts looked like happy holiday cards. But once users engaged the 360 feature to further explore the images (each shot in a real home with real families) – it revealed how easily poverty hides.

Online donations increased 67% during the campaign vs. prior year.

Successful in our goal to drive awareness and relevancy through increased social and digital engagement as well as increased web traffic – a key indicator that we’d engaged the Millennial target.

YouTube:

Yearly views saw a 57% increase YOY, with more efficient CPVs delivered across the year – an important metric when working with charitable budgets.

All Media:

Increase in VTR YoY by 7% (from 23% to 30%).

1212% increase in mentions of Salvation Army post spring campaign launch.

Facebook:

Campaign delivered a VTR of 31.23%, well above industry and previous campaign averages of 25%.

Overall impressions of 11MM from Facebook alone and over 2.3MM engagements.

Twitter:

Impressions of over 2.5MM with average VTR of 30%, doubling the Twitter benchmark set for non-profits (15.4%).

Earned Media:

Both campaigns were covered in over 120 publications with over 1.4MM estimated readership/coverage views.

The target was quite broad: all Canadians with disposable income as the bulk of The Salvation Army’s donations come via “Kettle” (stand alone cash donation boxes) in malls and outside grocery stores across the nation.

Our media approach sought to intercept Canadians throughout their day. Traditional channels - film, print, OOH and radio – were used in major markets to target the traditional 50+ donation base. Online channels – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – sought a new, secondary donation base: young, affluent Millennials who know The Salvation Army but aren’t currently donating to them.

The first phase of the campaign launched in May to coincide with Poverty Awareness Month and ran until June. The second phase launched in November and ran through the holidays - The Salvation Army’s traditional “Kettle Campaign” timeframe.

In Canada, people think poverty is a foreign issue. Truth is, 1 in 10 families struggle to keep a roof over their heads.

While poverty is viewed as a homeless problem, the reality is that poverty affects over 3MM Canadians.

We wanted to re-engage apathetic donors who didn’t understand the full spectrum of support that The Salvation Army offers those living below the poverty line.