The charity sector was financially in decline. Since 2015, the British Red Cross, the world’s largest humanitarian organisation, suffered a 40% decline in gross income. Because fundraising is what keeps charities afloat, we needed to unlock how brand marketing could directly drive donations.

Econometric modelling found a direct relationship between consideration and increased income. If we could prime our audiences by increasing consideration, we would increase income. Modelling showed we needed to drive up consideration by 0.5% YoY from a baseline of 26.1% to 26.6%, in order to avoid a decline. By developing a strategic and creative connection across both brand building and direct fundraising efforts, ultimately we hoped to also see improved donation results as well – a goal of +3.6m in Q4 2023. And we had to achieve this with a media budget of just £1m and a creative and production budget of just £317k.

Due to the extreme financial pressures on charities, we needed a new, cost effective creative approach – all within a creative and production budget of just £317k.

So, we adopted the beauty of tight constraints by using pre-existing news footage & photography…

The creative platform, ‘Here for Humanity’, shines a light on all the incredible work the charity does by leveraging what we know and what we have.

Here: We used the recognisable Red Cross emblem, which appears on all Responders’ uniforms, as a visual thread to highlight they are literally ‘HERE’ in each emergency.

For Humanity: At the centre of every photo was a responder wearing the iconic red cross – designed to protect our volunteers in warzones. ‘X’ literally marks the spot where the Red Cross is responding to an emergency. A visual manifestation of how they are ‘Here for Humanity’ no matter where or what the crisis.

We developed a series of crisis workshops to fastrack how we could transform the British Red Cross’s fortunes, so they could support those in need. The goal was to develop a new USP. This would become something the business could rally behind and importantly, become the springboard for creative work.

We discovered that 63% of their core audience thought: “I worry my donations won’t reach those that need it in international countries”. We needed to show evidence of how and where the Red Cross was making a difference. We noticed that consideration peaked during high-profile disasters and emergencies, like the invasion of Ukraine, due to the visibility of volunteers on the news. If we could leverage this direct association with emergencies, we could drive interest and build belief in the cause.

This led to our USP: Together, We Are the World’s Emergency Responders.

We moved from being a well known brand that people didn’t really know, to being one they now understood and would choose more often.

People saying they would consider supporting the British Red Cross post campaign increased by +4% on just £1m paid media – the biggest jump of any charity at the time. By comparison, the top four charities spent between £2.5 to £9m on ATL paid media and saw smaller shifts in the region of 1 to 2%.

We more than doubled consideration to donate doubled vs. our target.

0.5% Target vs. +1.1% increase. (YouGov)

We saw all key consideration drivers improve.

Trust (+3%) & ad awareness (+4%).

We successfully primed for fundraising efforts.

Which saw a record £4.2m versus the targeted £3.6m.

This campaign proves that you can make your mark even when budgets are tight.