We created “The Cabinet of Dreams”, London’s first virtual pop up gift shop where instead of buying something predictable for Valentine’s day, people could buy a stunning virtual gift and make a donation to Women’s Aid on behalf of their loved one. The virtual gift is a text you forward on, with a message of love and a url link to the virtual gift. The 9 money can’t buy gifts had a single physical representation beautifully handmade by artists. These sat in an installation window displayed in Soho, London.In order to increase talkability we used Valentine’s Day in juxtaposition with the nature of the charity and the issue and rather than pushing the negative side we aimed to raise talkability via an innovative idea and a beautiful gift. It also existed as an online shop in order to help reach those who could not make the shop front.

Our design had to capture the public’s imagination and draw them to the window or the website. It needed to stimulate discussion and engage the press and public at a time when hundreds of brands and charities are competing for Valentine’s Day coverage. It had to be original and captivating a combination of stunning design and unique personality from each creator, to connect with people enough for them to buy the gift. The final design for the 'Cabinet of Dreams' reflected a Victorian curiosity cabinet. For the first time we associated domestic abuse with something visually stunning rather than shocking.

Designed to be live for 1.5 weeks around Valentine’s day the website and blog received 6,000 hits, Sarah Brown and Graham Norton (amongst others) tweeted about it, articles and reviews were written about the cabinet including the Huffington Post, The Mirror, Trend Hunter, Stylist, Creativity online and Design Week - the list goes on. It created 2.5m media impressions on the back of a tiny budget and its outreach was so great that we were approached about it for a magazine in Taiwan! In addition it raised over a £1,000 in consumer donations, a big amount for small charity.