The Thames Valley Air Ambulance crew work 365 days of the year, from 7am to 2am and are called out seven times a day, on average, to help people in need of urgent critical care.
For their Christmas appeal, TVAA asked us to create a supporter mailing that would celebrate the hard work of the team – including their boots!
The Story: Every Christmas cash appeal needs a seasonal theme and on this occasion it was the ‘workers’ of Christmas – i.e. Santa and the Thames Valley Air Ambulance crew! (And particularly their boots).
The Brief: A responsive DM cash appeal to raise money for the Thames Valley Air Ambulance at Christmas.
Our Response: We asked donors to ‘Buy Our Boots’ and, more generally, to help supply the kit that the TVAA crews need to save lives at Christmas.
Why it Works: By telling the story from the point of view of the crews’ own boots we gave the appeal both personality and cut-through. We also made sure to include a powerful real-life story, on this occasion the moment a woman whose life was saved by the crew, got the chance to meet them and say thank you.
Results: The appeal raised £77k against a target of £50k, achieving a response rate of over 15%.
TVAA also received over 750 messages of support on the Christmas tree baubles for the crew members – with people taking the opportunity to thank them for their life-saving efforts, including some personal stories of the TVAA crew having rescued family members or friends.
150% of
target raised