Posted 4 May 2021
In 2019, Media Trust and Ogilvy held a ’24 Hours to Make a Difference' Charity Challenge Day. Over a year later, one of our three charity participants had turned the creative ideas generated by their Ogilvy team of volunteers into a successful Christmas campaign.
Redthread’s communications challenge
Redthread is a youth work charity that works with young people who are navigating the vulnerable transition of adolescence. Their mission is to empower young people to thrive as they navigate the challenging transition to adulthood by integrating trauma-informed youth work into the health sector. As part of Redthread’s hospital-based Youth Violence Intervention Programme, Redthread’s youth workers based in hospitals in Birmingham, Nottingham and eight locations across London work alongside A&E staff to support young people who come through hospital doors as victims of violence or exploitation. The team encourage and support young people to make healthy choices and positive plans to disrupt the cycle of violence to prevent re-attendance and re-injury.
In 2019, Media Trust teamed up with Ogilvy to run a ’24 Hours to Make a Difference’ Charity Challenge Day. Media Trust reached out to Redthread to see if they wanted to work with a dedicated team of expert industry volunteers on a specific communications challenge.
This is where the ‘Be a Redthread’ idea came to life.
Mairi Wilson, Fundraising Manager, Redthread
Following the event, Redthread remained in contact with Ogilvy who were really invested in the overall campaign idea and keen to make sure it came to life. They were able to connect Redthread with agency members who were experts in Facebook advertising who gave them tips and resources to guide the campaign.
In an unprecedented turn for both organisations, the Covid-19 pandemic delayed some of the conversations and work that needed to be done on the campaign. However, by October 2020, the Be a Redthread campaign was coming to life.
Once the campaign idea had been locked in and the script was written, the next step was to get the animation made. Ogilvy were able to introdduce Redthread to Genero, a platform that links creatives with brands and organisations. After posting their pitch, Redthread linked up with Ukraine based video agency And Action to create their overall animation. And Action was able to put their own spin on the video, giving it its overall modern look.
Ogilvy did an amazing job with our brief and created the script for the voiceover. You can tell they genuinely cared and understood what we were trying to achieve.
Mairi Wilson, Fundraising Manager, Redthread
Working with Redthread to help create their brand animation was an easy decision for us. The work they are doing is so important and we were thrilled to help bring their brand story to life. We worked closely with the internal team to imbibe what Redthread’s core principles are, and together, turned it into a compelling story that the animator was able to bring to life.
Joshua Thomas, Ogilvy
A successful Christmas campaign
The Be a Redthread animation was officially released in December 2020 as part of Redthread’s Christmas fundraising campaign. Compared to their 2019 Christmas campaign, Redthread saw a huge increase in engagement on social media, including 43,000 more impressions and 581 total more engagements. MPs were posting the video unprompted and they were getting a lot of traction from NHS staff.
The value of working with Media Trust on our '24 Hours to Make a Difference' initiative is more than the sum of its parts. Our staff have started to understand the challenges facing the third sector, they benefited from experiencing the whole journey from client brief to creative output, they had a unique networking opportunity and their motivation and sense of purpose have been massively boosted. On top of all this, they had the satisfaction of seeing all the participating charities - not just Redthread - gain valuable skills, insights and answers to their business challenges. It's a win/win for everyone.
Amy Shaw, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, Ogilvy
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