Pilion Trust: FUCK THE POOR

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Use of Media
Category: Use of Special Events and Stunt/Live Advertising
Advertiser: THE PILION TRUST
Product/Service: YOUTH HOMELESSNESS CHARITY
Agency: PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Client: THE PILION TRUST
Product: YOUTH HOMELESSNESS CHARITY
Entrant: PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Type of Entry: Use of Media
Category: Use of Special Events and Stunt/Live Advertising
Entrant Company : PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency : PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Production Company : SUPERGOOBER London, UNITED KINGDOM
Executive Creative Director: Andy Bird (Publicis London)
Copywriter: Steve Moss (Publicis London)
Art Director: Jolyon Finch (Publicis London)
Agency Executive Producer: Colin Hickson (Publicis London)
Agency Producer: Sam Holmes (Publicis London)
Director: Jonathan Pearson (N/A)
Producer: Adam Dolman (Supergoober)
Editor: Toby Conway Hughes (Marshall Street)
Head Of Art/Design: Andy Breese (Publicis London)
Director Of Photography: Peter Bathurst (N/A)
Post Production: Dan Bennett (Absolute)
Sound Design: Tom Heddy (Wave)
Results and Effectiveness:
To date the film has been watched over 3.5 million times.
The Pilion Trust received £163,734 in donations, over three times the £50,000 target. Year to date donations are up 1,623% and still rising. This represents a 32,647% ROI.
There has been a 572% rise in people signing up to give on a monthly basis, representing a huge increase in long term relationships with the brand.
To date the campaign has generated 255 million media impressions equating to £8.3 million in earned media.
But most of all it meant that the shelter for homeless kids didn’t have to close.
Creative Execution:
As there was no money for traditional media we knew we had to leverage social media to maximise engagement.
Without the money for seeding we worked with a team of volunteers from a local youth club to build a database of influencers, leveraging both client and agency contacts.
To ensure maximum reach on Twitter we debated the #FuckThePoor hashtag at length. Twitter dictates that hashtags using profanity will not be allowed to trend. But we decided the benefits outweighed the disadvantages.
The film was launched via YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, and our youth volunteers worked around the clock to keep the conversations going and worked to convert positive comments into positive action by donating on The Pilion Trust’s JustGiving page.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea:
UK charities are suffering. Donations are down 20%. Government funding is down 60%.
The Pilion Trust is tiny. The cuts meant their shelter for homeless kids was about to close. They needed to raise £50,000 to keep it open.
They have never run any advertising and have no brand visibility outside a core of loyal supporters.
We needed to speak to as many people as possible to ask for help. But they didn’t have the money for big budget ad’ campaigns. We needed a low cost, attention grabbing way of raising money and awareness.
We started thinking about the psychology of giving. We identified that there’s often a gap between what we feel and what we do.
This insight led us to conduct a social experiment on the streets of London. We set out to prove that people really did care. Then asked them to please care enough to give.