2018 Gold Charity
12 Dec 2018
Agency: GOOD Agency
Client: WaterAid
Campaign name: Untapped
Campaign overview
Clean water to everyone, everywhere, by 2030
The brief
The work required a fundraising appeal to meet WaterAid’s most ambitious target ever (£3.9m).
And the campaign needed to bring in new supporters, and to promote positive brand sentiment so that by 2030 everyone, everywhere can access clean water.
Strategy
Fundraising’s full of rules.
But these rules have brought fundraising to a place where it’s easy to ignore – as evidenced by declining results across the sector.
Thus, WaterAid needed to break the rules and tell the story of the people of Tombohuaun, Sierra Leone, in a completely new way.
This strategy pushed WaterAid beyond their typical NGO reach into a digitally native and millennial demographic.
It was matched by a comms strategy that prioritised light touch engagement – inviting people to like, share and be part of the community so that they’d be more likely to want to donate to it.
And a media strategy that was led by digital, social and PR, with reach added by cinema, taxi advertising and train panels.
The result was #Untapped: a three-month, multichannel campaign about the amazing untapped potential of one community.
Creativity
The creative strategy for the campaign came complete with comprehensive guidelines and training.
This meant that the whole organisation could get behind the new storytelling dynamic.
The joint agency/client team created thousands of pieces of content across dozens of channels.
A bespoke website was used as a platform for storytelling, and included a tour of the community and a name generator where visitors could receive a new nickname like actual visitors to Tombohuaun do.
The people of Tombohuaun told their own stories through an Instagram feed, and a Facebook chatbot put people directly in touch with Sellu.
The campaign built a genuine two-way experience to bring the people of the UK closer to the people of Tombohuaun.
The result was a modern, creative-led campaign that brought fundraising out of the bad old days.
Results
The WaterAid brief made their ambition clear: this was the biggest fundraising target they had ever set at almost four million pounds.
They also sought to maximise reach and engagement levels; to develop marketleading digital experiences; and to drive positive brand sentiment to create a basis for future growth.
The campaign had 430 million unique opportunities to view, and achieved an all-time high for ad awareness of 15%, resulting in 76% of donations after just one visit to the website, and 88% on the same day of the visit.
Some 56,173 people donated, with 31,239 new donors, and #Untapped raised £4.2 million – doubled to £8.4 million by the UK Government.
That’s an ROI of 2.6 without the Government contribution (5.2 with it) which is above sector averages for international development charities, and unheard of at a time of public distrust in international NGOs.
Campaign video
Team
GOOD Agency - Reuben Turner, Creative Partner - Andy Powell, Associate Creative Director - Claire Langham, Art Director - Louis Cochrane, Designer/ArtDirector - Jade Thompson, Copywriter - Jason Mathias, Copywriter - Lizzie Russell, Copywriter - Greg Fagg, Artworker - Toks Adeola, Artworker - Hanisha Kotecha, Deputy MD - Elaine Cowen, Planner - Helen Miller, Account Manager - Lucy Smaill, Account Director
WaterAid - Nicholas Spandagos, Special Projects Manager
Contributors
MC&C