To tackle this, we used some key insights:

• Cultural: Although donation intent goes up 31% at Christmas, a child welfare conversation is a difficult one to have amongst all the festive noise of tinsel, trees, shopping and socialising.

• Creative: Shocking scenes in black and white adverts were no longer working (- £10.8m donations vs 2011), we needed a positive approach to demonstrate how the NSPCC helps.

• Brand: The NSPCC name is well-known but provides 49 different services, it is a complicated proposition to understand. Awareness was high (85%) but less than 30% could name any services. Our research showed that a better understanding of what the NSPCC actually do would increase propensity to donate by 26%.

Success came from a multi-layered approach:

• Driving understanding to galvanise support

The Metro and Mail partnership told the NSPCC’s story, with 11 weeks of celebrity-fronted coverage.

Our switch-on issue was a full Metro takeover with editorial throughout and even advertisers creating bespoke Little Stars copy with The MailOnline mirroring the content to drive digital scale.

Unilad’s emotional Facebook video featuring Aaron, who tragically lost his younger brother to suicide, stressed the importance of supporting children who need help.

• Dominating Oxford Street

The sponsorship is the UK’s biggest OOH holding which we bolstered with buses, digital posters and underground panels. Retailers even sold branded pin badges in their stores.

We geo-fenced Oxford Street with Weve and Snapchat to make sure visitors received follow up messages and could add Little Stars filters before posting.

• Celebrity support

51 celebrities dedicated Little Stars including the Prime Minister. Celebrity social reach was 20m+.

The NSPCC became a shining presence across the length of Oxford Street reaching 43.9 million visitors (79% UK), achieving 59% unprompted awareness (amongst visitors) and selling out of 150,000 pin badges. London Mayor, Sadiq Khan’s endorsement on switch-on day helped generate 192 pieces of coverage worth £1.4million.

Media owners donated £3m added value to reach 35.4m unique people.

In social, the Unilad video, Facebook Live switch-on broadcast, Weve and Snapchat geo-targeting social content was viewed/used/swiped 4.9m times. The celebrities added a further 20m+ reach. This galvanised support from new quarters with 89% of visitors and 76% of donors completely new to the NSPCC – the strongest ratio for at least the last 4 years.

We saw unparalleled shifts in brand metrics: +11pt increase in understanding what the NSPCC does, and an +11pt increase in donation intent.

We beat our £500k fundraising target and the NSPCC has committed to Little Stars 2017.