One Day: A global integrated film campaign for UNHCR International
This month, we wanted to share a piece of work that’s making us feel really optimistic here at DTV. We recently launched a global integrated film campaign for UNHCR International. It’s already been successfully launched in 5 countries and continues to grow with strong global ROIs for TV.
The reason this is such an exciting project is because the campaign is a significant shift for UNHCR in the way that they fundraise and has a uniquely flexible and modular approach to integration.
The insight, ethics and proposition:
During creative development we deep-dived into UNHCR’s global audience and held a number of collaborative workshops - building an understanding of UNHCR’s values, identity, motivators and barriers and helping us to pull out some key themes:
The importance of UNHCR’s Emergency Response
The value put on hearing authentic, on-the-ground voices and narratives
UNHCR supporters’ view themselves as ‘global citizens’ with a responsibility for their wider community.
Out of these themes, we built the proposition: One day can change everything
The proposition is all about crises and emergency whilst also tapping into the idea that these disasters are affecting people just like us, their world’s turned upside down in just a day. It moves our messaging away from othering beneficiaries and toward ‘global citizenship’ and the connections between beneficiary and supporter:
The proposition represents a shift in how UNHCR builds relationships with potential supporters: instead of hearing from UNHCR as an organisation - it raises new, authentic voices that can tell their stories and stories of the people whose lives have been turned upside down in just one day.
Strategy
We then developed a global ‘Full Funnel’ integrated DRTV and Digital fundraising campaign that focussed on donation conversion. We wanted to show how supporting the core DRTV asset by integrating film across the funnel in digital would improve overall results.
The following diagram illustrates the campaign approach we developed with UNHCR:
With UNHCR global markets having various sizes and breadths of fundraising programmes the campaign activation needed to be fully modular. In this way each market could decide if they wanted to launch all elements of the funnel activity (as they had an ‘out of the box’ campaign) or just run individual aspects that suited their market. This would be dependent on the market’s size, experience, ambitions and budgets.
The campaign was developed as a ‘walled garden’ digital approach so that all digital stages remained in one digital channel. In this way we could guarantee 100% attribution of all elements of the campaign as it was fully trackable so we could see the impact of each and every element of the campaign.
The Creative
We’ve provided a selection of key assets from the 'One Day' campaign that highlight the main touchpoints across the integrated funnel.
One Day Global DRTV
DRTV is at the heart of the integrated campaign, with a 90-second film that powerfully explores the devastating reality of how a single day can change everything for refugees—from a global perspective.
Awareness
At the top of the funnel, we focus on awareness—showcasing how 'One Day' can represent a positive turning point. These assets are designed to inspire hope, spark engagement, and build brand recognition.
Retention
The retention film again builds on the core message that one day can change everything—but emphasizes that lasting change requires ongoing support, day after day. It highlights the importance of continued commitment and the difference that sustained action can make.
Toolkit
Central to the campaign was a ‘Toolkit’ to support the markets. The toolkit explored the proposition itself; the context, manifestation and ethics as well as the integrated and modular approach, assets available to use and ongoing additional content for individual markets to adapt, build and localise.
If you’re interested to find out more, come chat to us!
Bios
Saleem
Saleem is Global Strategy and Digital Director and has spent more than 20 years working in the UK’s leading fundraising agencies. He has helped many charities build highly effective acquisition, retention and legacy fundraising programmes. He is a passionate fundraiser and loves creative development and digital innovation.
Poppy
Poppy is a Creative Strategist at DTV and has worked in fundraising for more than 5 years. Poppy works closely with a large range of charities globally, developing creative propositions and approaches for a variety of campaigns and products in the sector.
Holly
Holly has been a producer at DTV for over three years, with a strong background in fundraising and project management.