Salvation Army

Integrated christmas campaign

Each Christmas for the last ten years we’ve added more channels and more creative executions to an integrated campaign – led by DRTV - that raised over £16m in 2018 alone.

Understanding an unique group of donors

Traditional values in a fast-changing world

Set up by William Booth in 1865, his ‘army’ of mostly volunteer supporters sought to bring “soup, soap and salvation” to those in need. Today, the Salvation Army is the largest and most diverse provider of social services in the UK after the government. They serve over 3 million meals per year at dedicated centres, provide beds for over 3,000 homeless people, running toddler groups, residential kids camps, prisoner outreach programmes… they even help reunite over 1,500 families every year. But they’re best known and loved for the distribution of food and other essentials at Christmas.

Making the most of the season

Delivering a years’ worth of new donors in six crucial weeks

The heart of TSA’s fundraising is an intensive 6-week marketing campaign running up to Christmas. We partnered with the TSA team to test new direct mail for the Christmas Appeal in 2008 and we’ve contributed to annual Appeals ever since with: DRTV, digital, social and email advertising, warm donor appeal mailings, press advertising, insert, door drops and cold direct mail. However, DRTV has been the focus, using our expertise and technical skills to deliver major campaigns providing a significant value of cash and volume of donors. And naturally, the new donors we recruit go on to feed subsequent warm and reminder mailings. Our work at Christmas is a valuable stream of income, performing at ROI’s from 2:1 to a remarkable 15:1 for warm direct mail.

Compelling storytelling

The heart of every emotional appeal

At the heart of our creative strategy lies authenticity; real stories from real people communicated in the most compelling fashion. This is made possible by the endeavours of the Agency teams, travelling around the UK to meet and talk in depth with people who have been helped or are in the process of being helped. We capture their experiences first-hand, with all their back-story and authentic, urgent (and often very gritty) need. We’re also able to find out about the help received and the often life-changing positive outcomes. The field work undertaken in Swindon during 2018 inspired a new approach to door drops which has proved a new success this Christmas.

Year after year after year

Christmas has delivered for the Salvation Army

The Christmas appeal has grown every single year to the extent that 2017 generated over £15 million and 2018 – which is still being counted – is projected to exceed this by some considerable margin. We are not at liberty to disclose the numbers in detail at this stage, but we can reveal all key metrics have been achieved, comfortably. We are very proud of our Salvation Army contribution, in the last 10 years we estimate our work has contributed to over £140 million.

Get in touch

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