Age UK’s Christmas Appeal is their most important fundraising moment – and, when we pitched for it back in 2022, we knew it’d be more challenging than ever.
With a cost-of-living crisis brewing – entailing an inevitable shrink in the nation’s giving – we needed to develop a strategy and creative execution that would cut through, compelling audiences to support some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
what we did
- Strategy
- Appeal playbook
- TV
- Press
- Direct mail
- Paid digital
- Retail
Our strategy took Age UK’s traditional focus on loneliness at Christmas and expanded it, showing audiences the spiralling issues so many lonely older people were facing: rising food prices, energy costs, desperate isolation.
You don’t imagine that future for yourself when you’re young. A world where life, once full and joyful, has become so much smaller. With nothing to look forward to, nobody to keep you company, nobody to ask for help when the bills are rising and you don’t know what to do.
Our appeal took that reality, and presented a solution: Age UK’s specialist advice line and friendship services. Services that radically transform older people’s lives.
We interviewed and filmed two incredible storytellers – Brenda and Terry – and made them the stars of the campaign. Together, they helped us bring everything from door drops and press adverts to targeted social film to life, showing the world how transformative a gift to Age UK can be.
Plus, we capitalised on the World Cup to create ‘Fred’s World’, our hero brand film, driving awareness of the appeal on streaming services. Using the football as a hook, we showed audiences how painful it is to be lonely in older age after losing the ones you love.
Despite the cost-of-living crisis and postal strikes which impacted appeals across the charity sector, our campaign achieved some incredible results, especially on digital channels.
With record-breaking results on paid social and email, as well as huge brand engagement, the appeal emerged strong in a challenging environment – securing well over a million pounds of income for this incredible charity.
