BF media was asked by the charity KidsOut to oversee all comms output for their annual Giving Tree campaign. From the moment interviews with broadcasters commenced, the charity was able to see in real time, significant spikes in donations following each individual TV and radio appearance, resulting in increased donations to the charity during the two week period of the campaign.
Here’s how we did it.
KidsOut is a charity which exists to give disadvantaged children positive experiences and memories, whether that be providing toys to children who have escaped serious domestic violence, food vouchers to families in refuge or organising trips to the zoo and cinema for families that in fleeing their home, left everything they owned behind.
One of the charity’s main initiatives is their Giving Tree campaign, which, in the lead up to Christmas, encourages people to donate a toy to families living in refuge so that mums have something to give their children on Christmas morning an act that can make a huge difference in what are extremely difficult circumstances.
As a volunteer based organisation with only a small team of staff, the charity does not have a dedicated communications team so BF media were tasked to not only secure as much exposure as possible for the Giving Tree initiative but also help shape messaging for the campaign.
Without any new data or insight to lean on we made the call to set the campaign against the pandemic and the huge rise in families fleeing domestic violence over the previous 18 months as well as the sheer scale of the volunteer operation to sort, pack and distribute toy boxes across the entire country in the lead up to Christmas.
We also felt it would be important to be able to offer broadcasters spokespeople that could talk about the issues surrounding the campaign on a local level and therefore worked with KidsOut to secure and brief refuge managers from across the UK, who were then offered as additional spokespeople to KidsOut CEO Gordon Moulds.
A final important call we made was to start speaking to broadcasters with a long lead time – this allowed a number of stations to build entire segments of their shows around the wider issue of domestic abuse.
As soon as the campaign kicked off, the charity was able to see real time spikes in toy donations following each media interview culminating in an increase in donations of £20,000.
As well as donations, additional benefits from the broadcast campaign included a variety stations requesting to partner with the charity while a number of other outlets requested to be informed of all KidsOut initiatives in the future.
“It’s been a pleasure working with BF media, this was the first time KidsOut has embarked on a broadcast media campaign and the team where able to communicate to us in a clear and organised manner all the elements we would need to make the campaign a success. Not only did they guide us through the process and help shape messaging but the team also briefed all our various spokespeople to ensure key messaging was delivered in each interview. The project was a great success and we look forward to working with the team again soon.
Gordon Moulds, CEO KidsOut