WaterAid: #Untapped

Making the plight of a village 4,000 miles away feel closer to home

Background:

In the charity sector, proximity to cause is a key motivator for giving. WaterAid’s solution was to create a campaign that immersed our audience in the day-to-day life of one of the communities WaterAid helps – the village of Tombohuaun, some 4,000 miles away in Sierra Leone. This was a performance campaign with a difference, prioritising brand engagement over asking – inviting people to like, share and be part of the community so that they’d be more likely to want to donate to it.

Strategy:

We created a performance campaign with a difference. Prioritising light touch engagement over asking, we invited people to become part of the Tombohuaun community and encouraged them to like and share content to entice donations.

We used PR, Social, Cinema and OOH for reach and digital channels to deliver immersive village experiences, with performance channels (DRTV, DM and inserts) underpinning the activity to help deliver the donation target. Immersive digital experiences included ChatBot tours of the village, a 360 degree video from the waterhole itself, village nickname generators and “how to” village craft videos.

​​Results:

#Untapped smashed all targets, with 76% of donations occurring after just one visit to the Untapped website. This generated a staggering fundraising total of £8.2 million and delivering an overall ROI of 5.2. ​