During their traditional street collections, the Salvation Army sings the same well-known Christmas carols every year. This means the organisation is reaching fewer and fewer people and particularly lacks appeal to younger donators.To reach a young target audience, our strategy was to make the Salvation Army appear surprisingly younger without losing its well-known singing tradition – after all, there are plenty of other musicians who have a lot of success with their songs.

The reporting carried out by TV and radio stations, newspapers and websites achieved 65% penetration countrywide. Achieving similar results using conventional advertising would have required a media budget of Swiss franc 550,000, i.e. seven times more than our entire communications budget.The song donations were effective not only in the mass media but also out on the street. Young people reacted positively and the Salvation Army became a topic of conversation. It also helped to halt the slide and turn things around in terms of donations, which amounted to around Swiss franc 1.5 million, despite competition from other charities.

Our idea was to ask Swiss music stars whether they would be willing to donate one of their hit songs to the Salvation Army. Some of the most famous bands in Switzerland took part, allowing the Salvation Army to sing their songs for free, several of which had been number one hits in the Swiss singles charts.

This eventually enabled the Salvation Army to sing songs on the street from big-name stars who have an enormous fan base among young people in Switzerland. The Salvation Army was out rocking and rapping on the streets, attracting attention and giving it a younger image.

Everyone has seen the Salvation Army singing on the street. Everyone knows the hits that were donated. But the fact that the Salvation Army – which had always had a serious but slightly boring reputation – was out on the streets just like before but this time singing hit songs, confused people – but in a positive way. And that was despite the fact that the Salvation Army was out there doing what it does every year – namely singing.