Conflict across the Middle East in 2016, and its many repercussions such as the refugee crises, had presented a bleak outlook going into the festive period. And, when the disastrous events of Aleppo unfolded, Humanitarian charity Doctors of The World (DOTW), whose fearless volunteers provide vital medical aid across the region, needed to target a global audience like never before, to raise awareness and donations at this critical time. But most importantly, apply pressure on the UK government to establish a medical air corridor.

DOTW didn’t previously have a significant media profile, or the scale, network, resource or reputation of bigger medical charities. But we aimed to use this to our advantage, and bring about a change with a brave and novel creative idea to gain at least 2,000 signatures.

We put the cards for sale online – so people could purchase them, and spread the message themselves. And upon purchase people could opt to sign the petition and apply pressure to government in light of the ongoing Aleppo crisis.

We also used the cards to write hundreds of personal messages to influences in media (Christiane Amanpur, Jon Snow), as well as politicians (Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn) high-profile humanitarians (Kofi Annan, António Guterres) and religious leaders (The Archbishop of Canterbury).

Over the course of the build up to Christmas and advent, we had a tight window of opportunity to create maximum impact. To drive signatures and raise funds.

With a budget of just £3,101 we began with a small run of 2120 cards. But these sold out within 48 hours. We re-invested to produce an additional 2 runs to meet demand, to keep momentum going for the duration of advent.