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Challenge

War Child is an international aid charity dedicated to supporting children affected by conflicts, striving to keep them safe. As the only specialist charity for children impacted by conflict, it relies heavily on donations to provide its life-changing services to communities facing such challenges.

In 2023, War Child launched a social campaign featuring brand ambassador Gillian Anderson, which led to a significant uplift in engagement across social channels. Encouraged by this success, the charity was eager to explore how TV advertising could further its mission. This marked the charity’s first foray into TV, as well as our first campaign with War Child.

With a modest budget and an ROI target set by the client against cash donations, we embraced the opportunity to put into practice our extensive AV experience. Our goal was to maximise the impact of media to increase donations.

Activity

When planning War Child’s TV campaign, our deep understanding of the TV landscape was crucial, but we also needed to gain a closer insight into the target audience. Economically, 2023 was a challenging year due to the cost-of-living crisis, which impacted charitable donations. However, a more affluent audience with generous habits continued to give actively.

Tapping into our trusted media partners, we identified Channel 4 (C4) as a key platform for reaching an affluent, charitable giving audience. We allocated 60% of our total media budget to C4 and decided to split it in two strategic ways. We placed 30% of C4 spend into the regions and, while this approach could have been seen as high-risk due to under-attribution, our econometrics findings across other clients within the same industry, determined that this would in fact be a good choice of channel to suit client’s goals. We expanded our view of the TV landscape and placed the remaining 70% of the C4 budget into music and partner stations prompted by the insights we gained from how well these channels indexed against the international aid audience.

We also secured additional TV slots across Sky stations and Sky News (the remaining 40% of the total budget), which, given the political context of the ad, effectively positioned us alongside breaking news about the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts. Political features can be high-risk but, despite variables such as the worsening situation in Gaza, the campaign results showed minimal changes or drop-offs in website traffic. In fact, the increased volatility in Gaza raised further awareness for the crucial support needed by War Child.

Accelerating Growth

The campaign proved an enormous success with ROI and CPA results exceeding target expectations. The income attributed to TV activity meant that War Child’s income was 314% above target! The CPA results were 32% lower than was forecast. A great result for the client. 

It was also encouraging not to see a drop-off in total sessions or donations once the TV campaign had come to an end. By tracking TV attribution, analytics insights and Adalyser, we observed that sessions continued at the elevated level achieved during the campaign, demonstrating the long-term impact and halo effect of investing in TV. 

These results highlight how experimental campaigns can be a driving force in achieving amazing results. Whilst low spend testing may not be the right approach for every client, it works for those that want test the waters with new channels.