Challenge

The Woodland Trust’s brand awareness sits at a comfortable level of 76% prompted awareness. A main focus therefore is to convince aware audiences to act, as only 18% of those that are familiar with the charity are at the consideration phase. The Woodland Trust has bold, ambitious targets around income, campaigning and woodland creation, and members are a key driver of these. However, some people see the Woodland Trust’s vital cause as secondary to other charity appeals that can take priority because of their sense of immediacy.

Our mission was to amplify the impact and importance of woods and trees across the UK so people aware of the Woodland Trust would take decisive action and drive membership.

Media Innovation

The Woodland Trust has a bold, ambitious vision of a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature. It is unapologetic about the need for support in the fight for the UK’s woods and trees. It empowers supporters as part of the solution, inviting people to join its mission to protect and restore UK woodland. To maximise this campaign’s impact, context and placement was key, targeting people in the right mindset and putting the vital work of the Woodland Trust at the heart of the issues that matter to the audience.

We placed the Woodland Trust in contextually relevant environments across The Guardian. From its environmental newsletter, Down to Earth, to 24-hour takeovers of the Comment News and Environment News sections. We also commissioned an article about the destruction of the Sycamore Gap tree and upweighted activity around the COP30 climate change conference.

The rest of our membership campaign used long-form formats that meant we could deliver educational content to drive consideration. Alongside the Guardian partnership, we also partnered with the Telegraph. Our approach in the Telegraph complemented our activity in the Guardian: we commissioned articles about woodland protection and placed our activity in contextually relevant environments at key times. We also ran host reads on podcasts such as That’s Just Wild and ran a ‘Do Good’ promotion across the Heart Network. Using these trusted voices to deliver our message inspired audiences to move from consideration through to action, delivering our message and increasing support for our cause.