As a brand design consultancy, the one recurring brief we have is our own ‘Christmas card’. That’s ‘Christmas card’ in the broadest sense, because rarely is our mailing restricted to a simple piece of print.
The brief we set ourselves is generally along the lines of ‘showcase creativity, make it fun, convey something about us as a team and individuals, and have a charitable angle’– and this year was no different.
The idea of us all sporting Christmas jumpers came early. That just seemed like fun, but in isolation wouldn’t be enough. The challenge then was to develop it into something that ticked all the brief boxes.
Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity, was the cause we chose to raise money for, as it is particularly pertinent at this time of year and had a natural link with the creative concept.
Each member of the team sourced a suitably stylish/naff jumper. We the modelled the jumpers in a 1950s-style, created a website to showcase them and tell the full story, and auctioned the goods via eBay. To add value to the lots, we exploited our business and personal networks, called in favours, and generally appealed to the kind-hearted – all for ‘bonus extras’ to accompany the woolly items.
The campaign was kicked off with a ‘teaser’ Christmas card sent to all our clients, followed up by HTML emails to ensure that as many people as possible went online to view and hopefully bid for the jumpers. Utilising social media to the fullest, the word was spread via the likes of Facebook and Twitter. In the world of traditional media, awareness was boosted by a mention on BBC radio.
{vimeo}31784879|460|259|{/vimeo}
The whole initiative proved to be an excellent team building exercise, whilst bolstering mark-making’s* creative credentials. Most importantly, to date we have raised over £1000 for an exceptionally good cause.