Did you know that 1 in 9 people worldwide do not have access to clean water? That’s why, every year, WaterAid challenges Australians to “raise a glass to the one drink the world can’t live without”, asking participants to help raise the funds needed to solve this global water shortage problem.

In 2020, the NGO asked us to craft a creative campaign that could turn this problem into a relatable issue for two key audiences they identified: the “Healthies” (fitness fans who donate to join the challenge but don’t raise funds beyond that) and the “Greenies” (WaterAid supporters who frequently join the challenge).

Our aim was to help the Healthies understand that more than a reminder to stay hydrated, the challenge is a crucial means of fundraising for people in need. Meanwhile, we needed to activate the Greenies as WaterAid supporters and get them to encourage others to join in.

Every year, WaterAid asks Australians to only drink water for a whole month: a challenge that brings awareness to a global water shortage problem, and raises the funds needed to bring clean water to 1 in 9 people worldwide with no access to it. To help the NGO drive more donations, we created not one piece of content for the challenge, but thousands: one video for every single fundraiser, making participants feel like the NGO was talking directly to them – and only them.

Working resourcefully, we repurposed WaterAid’s existing assets to tailor our videos to the key motivators of each audience WaterAid wanted to reach: the Healthies, who see the challenge as an opportunity to stay healthy while doing good for millions of people, and the Greenies, who focus instead on the impact they’re having on others and see the challenge’s health benefits as an extra perk.

We knew that our personalisation engine, voundry, would be the perfect solution for reaching WaterAid’s large and varied audiences in a personal, compelling way. voundry can render over 100,000 unique videos in minutes and enabled us to work resourcefully, by repurposing WaterAid’s existing assets into a new, personalised video for each challenger. With data provided by WaterAid (and divided by audience category), we could address each recipient by name, appeal to their specific reasons for participating, and remind them of the need for donations.

A key consideration which drove our campaign at the time was the wildfires devastating large areas all over Australia. We realised that unlike previous WaterAid Challenges, this year called for a special sensitivity in light of the difficult situation. So aside from spanning a range of motivations, our targeted messages used encouraging language to strike the right tone of voice, even when sharing hard-hitting facts.

We knew that our personalisation engine, voundry, would be the perfect solution for reaching WaterAid’s large and varied audiences in a personal, compelling way. Using voundry to render videos in almost real time, and collaborating closely with WaterAid across different time zones (with the campaign running in Australia, and our production team based in the UK), we repurposed the NGO’s existing assets into thousands of new, personalised videos: one for each fundraiser.

Throughout the campaign, which lasted for all of March 2020, we sent 2,000+ videos individually to all participants via email to empower and motivate them to keep up with the challenge. With data provided by WaterAid and divided by audience category, we addressed each recipient by name and appealed to their specific reasons for participating.

Our aim was to remind the Healthies that more than an opportunity to stay hydrated, the challenge is a crucial means of fundraising to solve a global water shortage crisis. Meanwhile, we activated the Greenies as WaterAid supporters to encourage others to join in.

A key consideration which drove our campaign at the time was the wildfires devastating large areas all over Australia. We realised that unlike previous WaterAid Challenges, this year called for a special sensitivity in light of the difficult situation, and used encouraging language to strike the right tone of voice, even when sharing hard-hitting facts.

The smart use of WaterAid’s existing assets meant that we offered a cost-effective yet tailored solution to our client – crucial for a nonprofit that needs to maximise its funds for communities in need. The campaign was also WaterAid’s first foray into personalised marketing, and we’re proud to have made that first experience a successful one for them. Better yet: our videos helped to bring clean water to 785 million people worldwide.

Already in the initial months of the campaign, emails sent to the Greenies audience achieved an open rate of 32% – the highest of any email for the 2020 WaterAid Challenge. Meanwhile, click through on those emails ists at 33% – again, the highest click-through rate of any email sent by WaterAid Challenge.

The smart use of WaterAid’s existing assets meant that we were able to offer a cost-effective yet tailored solution to our client – crucial for a nonprofit that needs to maximise its funds for communities in need. The campaign was also WaterAid’s first foray into personalised marketing, and as content lovers, we’re proud to have made that first experience a successful one for them.

Best of all: Our videos helped to raise funds for bringing clean water to 785 million people worldwide.