A campaign ahead of its time – recognising the sacrifice of key workers and celebrating their selflessness months before the nation stood on their doorsteps to applaud.
Organisational Objectives
One4all Gift Cards is the market-leading provider of multi-store physical and digital gift cards now redeemable in over 60,000 leading stores across retail, services and online in the UK and Ireland. Having already consigned paper gift vouchers to history, One4all Gift Cards is focused on taking their concept of ‘creating a gift voucher that’s more convenient to purchase’ to as many people as possible, to give customers, ‘the ultimate choice’.
Communication Objectives
The communication objectives of the One4all John Torode Christmas campaign were three-fold:
- Drive brand awareness for One4all Gift Cards in the build-up to Christmas
- Drive entry to the social media competition
- Position One4all as the Christmas ‘gift of choice’
Target Audience
As well as targeting the UK gifting market in general, there was a specific focus on online lifestyle and parenting audiences.
Strategy
Every year countless thousands of people across the country – essential workers in healthcare, emergency services and hospitality – give up their Christmas to make sure we are all safe, secure and looked after at this special time of year. For them, 25th December is just another working day.
In the build-up to Christmas 2019, we devised a multi-channel campaign strategy to both highlight their sacrifice and also to give something back to those generous professionals who don’t get to spend time with their loved ones at Christmas.
A strategy based on a national competition, celebrity partnerships, national and regional news stories, a broadcast day and influencer partnerships.
Activities
We put a wide range of activities in place to recognise and celebrate the selflessness of those that give up their Christmas to help others.
- To officially launch the campaign we partnered with MasterChef judge and celebrity chef John Torode who prepared a surprise ‘fine-dining’ Christmas Dinner for the hard-working staff at Newham University Hospital in East London.
Each staff member was also gifted a One4all Gift Card as a thank you for their hard work.
- A strong TV and radio broadcast media interviews package with Dr Alex George, ex Love Island contestant and A&E doctor and Aoife Davey, Group Marketing Director at One4all Gift Cards.
- We partnered with five key parenting influencers and sent out a creative mailer to promote the One4all Gift Card on their social media channels
- We gifted 13 influencers and 3 journalists with a One4all Gift Card.
Underpinning all of these activities, we executed a hard-working product placement campaign to generate coverage for the One4all Gift Card in Christmas Gift Guides in the lead up to Christmas
Measurements & Insights
Outputs
The Launch Lunch
The video of the Christmas Dinner was used to launch a national competition, calling for people to nominate a working loved one deserving of an extra special Christmas. This was launched with a press release and competition mechanic.
The activity secured 10 pieces of coverage with titles including the Daily Express, Mail Online, ITV London and Hello magazine online.
Total reach of 190,952,490
Radio
Dr Alex George/ Aoife Davey broadcast coverage across national, BBC and community networks secured 12 pieces.
- Sky News TV (>4,500,000)
- BBC Radio Manchester (>186,000)
- UK Health Radio (>250,000)
- Entertainment News (syndicates content out to 50+ stations across the UK)
The broadcast day secured 15 radio opportunities and 103 online opportunities across multiple BBC and community networks with radio highlights including:
- The Hits Network (Listeners: 5,914,000)
- Magic Network (Listeners: 4,203,000)
- Absolute Radio (Listeners: 2,447,000)
An audio feature was also recorded and distributed across our network to ensure the key messaging was received throughout December. This meant a further 42 pieces of coverage.
Competition Partnership
PR Agency One partnered with a range of different media titles, launching a series of competitions where readers were in with the chance to win a One4all Gift Card.
21 print and online Christmas competitions were placed across multiple lifestyle and home and interiors titles including:
- Cosmopolitan (MUU: 6,500,000)
- Marie Claire (MUU: 1,200,000)
- Take a Break (Circulation: 432,683)
Total reach: > 12,335,833
Parenting Influencers
We partnered with five key parenting influencers.
Each influencer posted one Instagram grid post and three stories, highlighting to their followers why the Christmas Gift Card is the gift of choice and mentioning some of the key brand messages.
- Total Accounts Reached: 932,500
- Total Impressions: 991,137
Parenting and Lifestyle Influencers
To generate further awareness of the One4all Christmas Gift Card amongst key online lifestyle and parenting audiences as well as highlight it as the gift of choice for Christmas, we gifted 13 influencers and 3 journalists with a One4all Gift Card.
- Total Number of Influencers Who Posted: 50%
- Combined Audience Following: 82,420
- Total Actions Taken: 6,044
Out-takes
Key messages communicated through the influencer partnerships include:
- Multi store gift card
- Spend at 55,000 stores nationwide
- Available to buy online, Post Offices and Tesco stores nationwide
Outcomes
Media coverage is all well and good, but if it fails to inspire people to act then what’s the point? In this case, it became quickly apparent that not only had the public seen and been moved by the campaign launch, they’d been inspired to visit the One4all Gift Card website and find out more.
- 74% increase in traffic YOY following the John Torode launch event and coverage in the Daily Express, Mail Online, Hello! Online and the Newham Recorder.
- 72% increase in organic traffic to the site on the same day as the Dr Alex George broadcast
Impact and Learning
With the campaign launched in the run-up to Christmas, it could only really be classed as a success if the initial profile boost extended into and over the Festive period itself. It did. The proof in the Christmas pudding was irrefutable.
- Organic and direct traffic during the Christmas period increased by 52% year on year
- Brand awareness during the Christmas period increased by 55% year on year
- Revenue during the Christmas period was up 35% year on year with a 32% increase in transactions
A +50% boost in web traffic and brand awareness is a significant win at any time of the year – centred around Christmas, the biggest gifting and spending period of the year, uplifts like these translate into sizeable additional sales and revenues.
The campaign, more than simply boosting Christmas profile, web traffic and sales conversions left a lasting impact into and throughout the New Year
As important as the project was in its own right, drawing attention to the efforts and sacrifices of those soon to be celebrated ‘key workers’ seems strangely prescient – very much a sign of things to come and the nation’s genuine recognition, respect and appreciation for the many people out there who work so hard on all our behalves.
