2018 Silver Charity
14 Dec 2018
Agency: Campfire Marketing
Client: RNIB
Campaign name: RNIB Christmas Campaign 2017
Campaign overview
Gifting the magic of literature
The brief
The brief was to encourage people to give a donation at Christmas in support of RNIB’s Talking Books service.
Talking Books is a free library of around 27,000 recorded titles available to adults and children with sight loss.
Strategy
Firstly, at the heart of the campaign was a real, 9-year-old girl who had lost her sight, a fact that created huge empathy in the minds of the audience.
Secondly the campaign conveyed that Lily-Grace had suffered an injustice.
This little girl adored stories, but because only 7% of titles are available as Talking Books – each costing up to £2,500 to record – many incredible tales were beyond her reach.
Everyone deserves to be able to enjoy stories; a fact that served to touch the hearts of the audience.
Thirdly, Christmas is a time when books are traditionally given as presents.
The idea of granting the magic of literature to a child – one who has been blind since birth – was a highly compelling one.
Creativity
The storytelling theme was pushed to the max.
The work portrayed Lily-Grace as an intrepid explorer in a fairy tale world, searching for new stories and characters that would fire her imagination. It even illustrated her as a cartoon character in the direct mail piece.
What’s more, because the campaign was about bringing stories to life for an imaginative child, the most engaging way to achieve this was to create a vivid, magical, animated film.
To ensure maximum reach the film was hosted on the website, YouTube channel and social media pages, which also allowed for accurate measurement of the number of views.
Results
The campaign exceeded both projected income and the original ROI targets, showcasing a creative approach that was a huge hit with the audience.
Recipients also got the opportunity to vote for the latest Talking Book to be recorded, via a Christmas bauble response device.
17,408 of these voting forms were returned and again, this indicated that the audience was fully engaged with the idea. The decision to play out Lily-Grace’s story on social media was justified by a higherthan-ever return from online channels.
Films about Lily-Grace and her adventure were viewed over 70,000 times. The supporter reaction to the Lily-Grace campaign was unprecedented for RNIB, with wholly positive messages of support flooding in for Lily-Grace and Talking Books.
Team
Campfire Marketing - Nick Thomas, Creative Director - Paul Handley, Co-Founder and Strategy Partner - Paula Lipscombe, Senior Account Manager - Claire Martin, Senior Account Manager - Jess Thomas, Digital and Art Director - Alice Jones, Account Manager - Keith Wintle, Art Director - Matt Finlayson, Copywriter - Jo Price, Account Director
RNIB - Lucy Rathbone, Retention Manager - Andrea Jones, Head of Supporter Retention - Zainab Naeem - Sarah Crush, Head of Supporter Recruitment - Chiara Ashenden, Retention Officer
Contributors
The Production Hub