Save the Children: Gaza ceasefire SMS campaign
- Exhibited by
- Sarah Fitzgerald O’Connor, Save the Children.
- Added
- June 15, 2012
- Medium of Communication
- Target Audience
- Awareness, regular gift
- Type of Charity
- International relief / development
- Country of Origin
- UK
- Date of first appearance
- January, 2009
SOFII’s view
A simple yet so successful idea from Save the Children. Ruth Ruderham, who presented it at SOFII’s IWITOT rightly said that it’s an idea that anyone working for a development charity should have thought of. She then, with supreme honesty, admitted that she was one. Yes, she was working at ChristianAid in the UK at the time.
Creator / originator
Save the Children.
Summary / objectives
The primary objective was advocacy (and brand awareness/consideration). Our aim was to be seen to be putting pressure on the government, including a call to action to give people a way to help and to gather a volume of ‘petitioners’ to support our request to 10 Downing Street to call for a ceasefire. Our secondary objective was to convert these petitioners into financial supporters.
Background
The conflict escalated on 27th December and we launched a traditional emergency fundraising appeal on 31 December. The ground invasion started on 3 January. On 5 January the decision was made to run a ‘ceasefire’ campaign. We wanted to give people a quick, easy outlet to express their concern so included an SMS text response. We had a rough plan to call anyone who responded to convert to regular giving. We ran full-colour, full-page press ads in the four main broadsheets. We received 100,000 responses over the first weekend, 10/11 January. Conversion calling was up and running by 16 January.
Special characteristics
The image was a key element, which we were able to find from inside Gaza. Also, it seemed to go viral amongst some ethnic communities and appeared on blogging sites, taking on a life of its own. Crucially, because we are independent, it was not about taking sides but about the children who were suffering in Gaza. Also we could talk credibly about the situation as we were already working among the suffering in the stricken city.
Influence / impact
In total, we received 180,000 SMS messages, which we took 10 Downing Street the next week, resulting in Gordon Brown speaking out to demand a ceasefire. Then we converted 9,000 to regular giving.
Details
We sent an outbound SMS to all 100,000 responders to the first ads, to encourage them to forward it to a friend before our Downing Street meeting.
We ran further press ads to build the volume. We also did some testing with bounceback messages (SMS versus MMS with a financial ask and text for call-back option) and tested cash versus regular giving scripts on the phones.
The outbound SMS-ask resulted in a high opt-out rate and regular giving outperformed cash.
Costs
Campaign ROI of 1.4.
Results
We acquired 180,000 SMS supporters and 9,000 regular givers.
Merits
It’s an amazing example of a charity communication that inspired people to take action, convertd that action into financial support and achieved actual change to save children’s lives.
