2023 Bronze Out of Home

Agency: TMW Unlimited

Client: The Trussell Trust

Entry Title: Put It On Your List

Executive Summary

As the cost-of-living rises, so does the need for food banks. The Trussell Trust reported a 37% year-on-year increase in food parcels provided: the highest increase on record, representing 760,000 people accessing a food bank for the first time.

How could it increase public awareness and donations of needed products to food banks in the UK?

Strategy

While food banks are grateful for every donation they get, most tend to be the same products: pasta, beans, soup. Food banks run out of certain items more frequently than others that people might not think to donate, such as toiletries, long-life drinks and tinned meat or fish.

With donations not keeping pace with need, the charity needed to find a new way to help food banks get the right items at the right time.

The campaign harnessed multiple behavioural science principles:

• Using real-time data from local food banks to display relevant items that reflected the food bank’s current needs.
• Creating a sense of urgency and perceived value by making it clear the items were needed at that moment.
• Tapping into local pride by calling out the location of the food bank to remind shoppers that this was to help their neighbours.
• Reducing friction and cognitive load on the audience by positioning the donation as a simple addition to their existing shopping list.

Creativity

For such a serious task, this was clearly no place for clever visual tricks or wordplay.

Clarity and comprehension were paramount so the campaign was called it ‘Put it on your list’: a simple reminder to shoppers of how easily they could help people in need in their neighbourhood.

A simple and clean design framework was developed that could accommodate any product, name, or food bank location. The asset library covered the most-requested food bank items, generating Out Of Home creative in real-time. This also gave the food banks total freedom to request any item, as and when the need arose. Each featured item was unbranded, designed to be representative of the product range without demanding the audience find a specific brand.

‘Today’ urgency was displayed with a clear call-to-action asking people to drop items off at any local supermarket. To maximise donations, an alternative call-to-action in the form of a QR code was provided, linking straight to the relevant food bank’s Just Giving page.

Results

As a proactive creative concept developed in response to the vast challenges faced by UK food banks in the midst of the cost-of-living crisis, the campaign was awarded £100,000 of outdoor media from Ocean Outdoor. This was in recognition of the potential for such an impactful idea to have a tangible effect on public generosity.

Over the two weeks that the campaign ran in four UK cities, it reached 1,886,965 people.

Through creative testing on a representative UK survey sample, the team was able to show the potential for such a campaign if it were to be rolled out nationwide across a wider media footprint:

• 68% of people reported that the campaign made them aware of the challenges that food banks faced.
• 57% reported that it would make them think about what they could do to help food banks.
• 68% reported that it made them aware that food banks need a wider range of items.

Most importantly, 46% reported that the campaign would make them more likely to donate to a local food bank. That represents almost half the British public who would be more willing to help the cause because of the campaign, compared to a baseline of just 2% who have previously reported to have done so.

The Team

TMW Unlimited - James MacPherson, Joyce, Business Director - Brian Brady, Creative Director - Fred Brinton, Associate Planning Director - Chris Marsh, Executive Experience Director - Matt Walton, Senior Designer - Martin Parker, Lead Designer - Mike Oliveras, Artworker - John Chapman, Design Director - Jaime Miralles, Experience Designer - Tom Wilks, Technical Director

Trussell Trust - Hannah McCulloch, Activations Manager

Contributors

Ocean Outdoor