We shot updates on six kids introduced during last year’s campaign, featuring them as patients whose life have been put “on pause.” The video would start to play and then suddenly pause, we’d invite donors to help “unpause” the story by making a donation online. The user would then get instant gratification by being able to view the rest of the story. It was a never before attempted donation approach. Potential donors were able to see the “social proof” of others who had donated, by having previous donor names appear below the video bar – giving them a sense of being part of something bigger.

This was a digital campaign that ran for eight weeks during the Christmas season. We used Social Media ads to drive to the website. From there, you were presented with six kids stories each with their own donor goal. Clicking on each story gave you a glimpse into that child’s life from last year. But the story would pause and ask for a donation to view the rest of the story and see how that child is doing today. Once the donor donated they were added to the names below the video bar and able to play the rest of the video. When the video was complete they had the option of sharing to help reach each child’s goal and unlock the video for the world.

The campaign was an overwhelming success. We unpaused all six stories in five weeks during our eight-week campaign. We received 20% more online donations than last year’s campaign and achieved over 2.7 million views. The campaign quickly caught the attention of national media and created social buzz across Canada, leading to 74.5 million impressions. Contributing to the single, biggest-giving season in the 43-year history of the foundation, raising $49 million.