Cancer Wasn’t Expecting This

The Story: The University of Southampton had an ambitious £25m target to reach in order to build a groundbreaking Cancer Immunology Centre.

The Brief: We were asked to develop a direct mail fundraising strategy and campaign, based on the capital campaign overarching identity: ‘The Cure for Cancer? You’re It.’.

Our Response: We developed a campaign creative – Cancer Wasn’t Expecting This – that encapsulated the determined and positive spirit that united both patients and scientists.

Why it Works: As well as developing full copy and design for three separate DM appeals, we analysed the University’s supporter database to create a new appeal segmentation and make targeting recommendations including an ask strategy based on previous giving behaviour.

The final appeal was designed to move the focus from the building itself and more on to the people inside it – featuring the Talent Fund that was designed to encourage the best researchers, scientists and clinicians to work at the new Centre. Dr Juliet Gray, an expert in Paediatric Oncology at the University, agreed to be our signatory and she shared the story of Belle – a toddler with an advanced form of cancer that was treated with immunotherapy that was developed in Southampton.

Results: Both of the initial appeals smashed their targets across existing and lapsed donors – including achieving double the target response rate for previous donors and seeing 40% of responders give more than they were asked for!

In this way we have developed a pool of donors who are engaged with the new Cancer Immunology Centre but who also understand the need for further support now that the building is up and running – so they should continue to give to future appeals.