Craft Media London – St John Ambulance
St John Ambulance is the nation’s leading first aid charity and a household name. It relies on volunteers to deliver its life-saving services and on public funding for its operation, so recruiting new volunteers and raising funds are critical organisational objectives.
While most people have heard of St John (85%), far fewer would consider supporting the charity (19%) and many were unfamiliar with the services it provided. This lack of understanding prevented future volunteers and donors and hampered its ability to make compelling cases for support.
St John Ambulance’s challenge was to increase people’s consideration to support the organisation, doing this by broadening their familiarity with the extent of its services and deepening their connection with its mission.
The charity decided to build on its 2021 ‘Ask Me’ social media campaign, which told real life stories of first-aiders and the people they helped. St John Ambulance needed an environment that suited hard-hitting and emotive content. News brands were the obvious choice due to their ability to deliver long-form content to an engaged audience, and the charity chose to partner with News UK across its news and radio brands.
‘Ask Me’s 2022 campaign centred on a series of stories that helped to demonstrate the breadth of St John’s work, told across The Sun and The Times online in the form of native articles and videos across their websites and social channels. Working closely with the News UK team, St John Ambulance tailored its stories to fit the style of each brand and used celebrity engagement in news brands to boost the campaign’s fame.
Average dwell times for campaign content in The Sun were 2.9x higher than its benchmarks, and those in The Times were 1.5x higher. Familiarity with St John Ambulance increased by 35% among those exposed to the campaign. Most importantly, consideration to donate to the organisation increased by 79%, and consideration to explore volunteering increased by 118%.
The charity also saw an increase of 88% in those saying they would be likely to recommend supporting St John, against a benchmark of 28%. What is more, 88% of those who remember the campaign said they had gone on to take some form of action afterwards.
This entry took a considered approach using different personalities and human stories to link their insight through to the strategy and delivery.
Natasha Murray, CCO, UM London
79%
increase in consideration to donate to the organisation
118%
increase in consideration to explore volunteering
