How does a small charity that funds clean water projects truly engage consumers, fatigued by never-ending donation requests, to help alleviate the world’s misery? That would be a miracle…

Globally, 2.5 billion people lack access to clean water. Every minute, three children die from contaminated water. Wine to Water is a small non-profit that raises money through wine tastings, donations and online wine sales. Its name, of course, is a twist on Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine. The charity’s projects have provided access to clean water and sanitation for over 250,000 people in 17 countries.

To put its work on the map, its agency ‘invented’ the Miracle Machine: ‘the world’s first accelerated winemaking device for the home’, claiming to produce wine from water in three days. The pro bono campaign was an elaborate hoax, involving design, branding, a prototype, an app and a microsite.

We launched the Miracle Machine as a ‘coming soon to Kickstarter’ crowd-funding project. Within days, the story went viral worldwide, with 516 million media impressions. People were desperate to invest. Then, just as interest peaked, we came clean: the true miracle was not turning water into wine, but turning wine into water, thanks to the charity’s work.

The ingenious campaign resulted in astonishing levels of engagement, coverage and donations, with no paid media. Over 300,000 people watched the Miracle Machine video, awareness of the charity leapt, and donations increased by 21%, helping the team provide access to life-saving clean water for 6000 people.

We launched the Miracle Machine by leveraging Kickstarter (whose users reflect Wine to Water’s younger target). Within days, the project went viral. Over the next week it generated 500 million media impressions globally, including Fox News, Huffington Post, Mashable, Independent, Telegraph, Time, Esquire, and abc News.

We built Twitter and Facebook channels, and photo-bombed the machine into topical scenes. People kept asking when the Kickstarter page would go live: they were desperate to invest.

Just as interest peaked, we came clean. A new video was uploaded to Vimeo, YouTube and the microsite revealing that the true miracle was not turning water into wine, but turning wine into water. Philip and Kevin again fronted the film, this time joined by Doc Hendley, Wine to Water’s founder.

The reveal was followed up with ‘7 places: 7 faces’ featuring people affected by unclean water, and an eBay charity auction of the machine.

Awareness

• 300,000+ people watched the Miracle Machine video

• Over 1 billion media impressions

Consideration

• 7,000 people signed up, expressing interest in crowd-funding the Miracle Machine

• 92% of post-reveal coverage included a mention of Wine to Water link to its website.

Impact

• Visits to the charity website rose 142%.

• Donations increased by 21% in the 12 days leading up to World Water Day, compared with the previous 12 days.

• The charity estimates that as a result of donations made during this time, 6,000 additional people will get access to life-saving clean water