The Moon on a stick

The secrets to a successful Christmas campaign
By Gary Milton.

If there’s one thing that defines the Killer Creative way, it’s this. We don’t do vanilla. Our job as a creative strategic fundraising agency is to create high-concept killer campaigns that will provoke an emotional reaction. 

We are in the commercial fundraising business of selling products with memorable campaigns with a meaningful message and making your audience like you. If they like your products, they’ll like your charity – it’s that simple. We want to give them an experience that will immerse them in your organisation, and mould them into becoming life-long supporters.

Creating positive likeable campaigns is in Killer’s DNA. The decision to buy into a fundraising campaign, beyond the obvious practicality, is often emotional and sometimes irrational. People often buy into something just because they like it, whether it’s a campaign that makes them cry, laugh, want to sign up or love the charity for fighting for the cause. People want to feel good about giving, and we have the power to influence through our work to give them that moment, to create that emotional connection and pay off.

We’re in the business of selling positivity to create hope. To empower the supporter to make a difference, to have an impact and see the change that they can make.

By doing this, we’re making the charity more likeable. A strong negative emotional response may be effective in driving short-term action – but doesn’t necessarily leave them feeling good about the situation or charity. Not resorting to shock tactics or negative emotional manipulation demonstrates respect and collaboration and means that, in turn, the supporter can trust you – the best start for any type of long-term relationship. A strong positive emotional response is best for long-term brand growth.

It also gives us the most fertile platform creatively and for storytelling. The stories we can tell about the positive impact of change are endless, whereas the stories of problems and suffering are limited. This storytelling can travel further – people are more likely to want to talk about you when the story is positive and impactful.

We do this by going large with a ‘Big Idea’ and producing memorable campaigns. It’s a proudly old-school advertising and marketing approach which we’ve lived and breathed since our existence. Think of the glamorous and influential work of agency CDP (probably the finest agency in the world). ‘Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet’ or ‘Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach’ – an agency that fought to change the world with one big idea and would go full throttle to drive that single-mindedly to market.

We like to work with ambitious people, our perfect client is happy to be bold, be brave, be fearless. To have the freedom to develop a campaign that has a unique look with a meaningful message. Make it clever and entertaining for our audience with a heartfelt reason and rhyme behind it and an endearing script – we sell through creativity.

But it’s not just creative for creativity’s sake. The Killer blueprint calls for a storyline for the campaign; a beginning, middle and end – the action we want your audience to do which is the all-important donation ask. Simplicity is key, rather than trying to tell everyone everything up front, a strategic and consistent message will mean that your audience will remember that one big thing.

Our recent work on the Action for Children’s Secret Santa Christmas campaign
is a great example of this.

This is their flagship campaign and has been running for a few years. From the moment we received the brief, we knew it had all the ingredients to be a significant story in this festive period, with the power to galvanise the nation and drive substantial donations.

Secret Santa was already a great idea. The Christmas market is notoriously busy, so they wanted support in moving the campaign forward to ensure it delivered cut-through, relevance and urgency. They’d also identified an opportunity to grow a new audience and a chance to refresh their existing creative. We were thrilled to partner up with them on this exciting campaign!

The resulting campaign is deceptively simple. We wanted to take ownership of the phrase ‘Secret Santa’. The power of the phrase ‘Be a Secret Santa for a vulnerable child’ says it all, making it an ‘action’ headline – this is our hero message and the thing that will stick in people’s minds long after they see the ad.

This leads me on to the final element of any ‘Big Idea’. The most crucial thing in Secret Santa’s success was the team at Action for Children. A Killer campaign should always be something that the charity staff and community are proud of. If they are proud, they’ll get behind the campaign and champion it throughout their networks. And that makes us proud.

So for us, working closely with an ambitious and bold team like Action for Children, we can give them The Moon On A Stick.

Read more about Secret Santa at here.

Contact us to create your next memorable campaign.