The Challenge

It was early March and Surfers Against Sewage needed to create a Big Give Spring appeal, aiming to beat their 2021 appeal, but first they needed a new creative agency to work with.

We’d not worked together before, so we responded promptly to their invitation to tender. Our proposal included three possible initial creative directions, together with a clear costs breakdown and an achievable schedule covering all their requirements to warm and to cold supporters.

The charity chose us, saying they felt our design and copy showed we “really understood SAS as a brand”, they were “excited” to set about developing the appeal with us, and so together we set to work.

The Result

Working with the team, which included the Campaigns team as well as fundraisers, we spotted an opportunity to give the appeal an extra boost through effective storytelling, and delivered the creative to achieve this.

SAS were very receptive, and once it was delivered, they were thrilled to report it had gone down particularly well via emails and social.

In just seven days we had beaten the target, which had risen from its original one, so SAS set a stretch target for the audience.

What we’re most proud of

SAS is a dynamic, ambitious charity, with a highly skilled and dedicated team. From us they needed equal ambition, creativity, flexibility and a close working relationship, which we’ve loved.

We had very little time to pull the campaign together, but by starting off with strong creative to brand the appeal, we had a great basis to work from together.

Bringing our idea of using storytelling to connect the audience with the campaign proved to be an out-and-out winning add-on. It worked seamlessly with our impactful design and with the team’s campaign project-management, and gave the charity hugely useful insights for their future activity.