2012 Bronze Best use of direct mail

Client Salvation Army

How did the campaign make a difference? Telling a real story to existing supporters as close to Christmas as possible but waiting until 26 November paid dividends for the Salvation Army: a massive 22% response. This single mailing raised £4.4 million, gained a response rate of 22% and an ROI of over 20.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? This mailing was about contacting the right people at the right time, telling them the right story, and asking for the right amount. The donor file was mined for 623,000 supporters who weren’t just the most likely to donate again, but who would do so in significant volume. From previous tests, it was known that Christmas is a special time for supporters, but donors were also likely to give to other charities, so their doormats would be crowded. It was decided to leave it late, dropping on 26 November. By then, those other appeals were a distant memory. The file was segmented into low, medium and high-value segments, and with the same base pack, each segment was given a different shopping list. Donors who had previously given between £40 and £99 were offered £19 to £250, while those who’d given more than £100 started at £63 and rose to £329.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? Through testing, the problem of homelessness was known to have key emotional appeal. During August 2011, homeless people might have been taken aback to find ad agency creatives turning up and asking them their life stories. Agency staff met with dedicated Salvation Army officers and staff in different cities and collected material to tell compelling true stories. They spoke to, and photographed, real officers working in extraordinary conditions. The uniform resonates powerfully with this audience, so the officer was made the central element. The job of this piece was to be a transparent window through which the real heroes could be seen. The letter was simple; there was a very basic leaflet and a low-cost calendar to suggest to donors that they can help all year. Above all, the stark reality of homelessness at Christmas worked powerfully with the strategy of urgency, turning this into one of the most successful Christmas mailings in the industry.

Results During one of the worst recessions in living memory this single mailing produced donations of £4.4 million from 137,000 donors, with a response rate of 22%. 623,000 donors were mailed at a total cost of £215,000.

Team John Eversley, Bob Nash, Alison Meredith, Zoe Hewitt, Rob McWilliam, Polly Jones, Mick Eglinton