We’ve worked with Mind on six Christmas appeals – and we’ve loved every moment. Together we’ve achieved some brilliant results, beating targets year on year.
But in 2021, amidst a flurry of pandemic appeals and a stark mental health crisis, Mind needed to do something that really stood out.
We needed to do something brave. Something that laid bare the trauma caused by the pandemic, and put Mind at the centre of the fight against it. We needed a proposition that would harness vital income, and foster a lasting relationship with supporters.
what we did
- Strategy
- Appeal playbook
- Direct mail
- Digital acquisition
- Press
To get through to our audience, we needed to get personal. Gradually, we uncovered the full extent of mental health issues people were dealing with. The isolation, anxiety, and depression. The conditions that had become so much worse after successive lockdowns.
We spoke to people who had lost loved ones, people who had been made redundant. People who had been through hell on the frontline.
This was widespread, endemic trauma. And over time, it was only going to get worse. It was vital for Mind to step up – and compel people to take action.
Throughout the process we worked holistically with the entire organisation – and united them around a single message.
We knew, given the context this year, that Mind had an opportunity to cut through. So we collaborated with the media agency to make use of every opportunity. And we explored new avenues with Mind’s digital team – agreeing on a bolder approach to cold digital audiences.
And through our proposition, we showed people that Mind had a solution to the crisis – we said to them: we understand, we see you, and together, we can fix this.
Our meticulous collaboration led to water-tight creative, rolled out widely across a range of media in the run-up to Christmas.
Encompassing press, digital and print, this integrated campaign united all of Mind’s channels.
We left our targets in the dust, smashing the £146k goal for direct mail with an income of £192k – and garnering £380k from digital donations against a £47.6k target.
And with 13m impressions on social media, it’s safe to say we started a national conversation about trauma in the pandemic – and firmly placed Mind’s work at the heart of it
