The Process

We started working with World Animal Protection in 2014. The charity’s loyal base of supporters had mainly been recruited through cold bear-baiting DM appeals.

A recent pack around ghost-fishing gear and the negative impact on marine life had struggled, however. While they knew the subject matter was strong, the creative hadn’t worked well.

The charity turned to us, first of all to create a successful online and offline appeal about rescuing dogs from being gassed in the Philippines. Secondly, they wanted on-brand and off-brand mailing variants to run a split-test, and further variants included packs for UK and overseas, cash and regular givers, warm and lapsed, and Mid-value and Standard-value: 32 variants in total.

The Result

Not only did the appeal perform well, but the split test proved definitively that brand elements and restrictions for marketing resulted in a much lower response rate and ROI than a more informed and nuanced Individual Giving style.

For every team, this was a fantastic result, enabling the organisation to mature its rebrand (from WSPA to WAP) and keep its thousands of supporters engaged.

Our relationship went on to produce more appeals, newsletters, calendars and other supporter engagement comms which frequently exceeded the targets, and kept the messaging dynamic and fresh.

What we’re most proud of

WAP is an amazingly ambitious charity, with highly skilled fundraisers in the team. From us they needed equal ambition, creativity, flexibility and a close working relationship, which we’ve loved.

The team is excellent at reviewing and interrogating their results, week on week and when appeals have matured. Each new brief set more challenging KPI targets, and inspired a huge range of creative solutions from us.

Whether the team needed us to deliver whole appeals, from concepts right through to production, or wanted design only, or copywriting training, we’ve been really proud to be their partners of choice. What’s more, as team members have moved on to different charities, they’ve taken us with them, so we’ve been able to keep delivering top results and work with the very best in the field.