Case study: Independence Australia reaches out to an at-risk target group to spread awareness with TV campaign via Wunderman, Melbourne
Case Study: Independence Australia, an NGO, worked with Wunderman Melbourne to reach out to more Australians to spread awareness on their community solutions and promote participation for their event, ‘Steps for Independence’, through a high quality TVC.
Background: There are more than 600,000 charity and not-for-profit organisations in Australia. That’s approximately one for every 38 people in the country.
Independence Australia supports people with a disability or physical need to regain and extend their independence, achieving a better quality of life. The insight relates to what most take for granted – the ability to walk.
With the upcoming Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Week, Independence Australia tasked Wunderman Melbourne to create a TVC to reach out to the target audience of people who may be at risk and promote participation for their event.
Aim: Independence Australia needed an approach to increase awareness of its organisation and raise funds for people living with spinal cord injury. There was a need to promote and increase audience knowledge on the event, which was to be held during Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Week through a well-timed TVC.
The idea for the campaign was to draw attention to the things one does every day – things that are taken for granted. Many walk, run and skip without much effort, simply taking bodies for granted.
Execution: Independence Australia organized “Steps for Independence” – a one hour walk where people could count their footsteps to raise money for others who can’t walk at all.
To launch and promote the event, Wunderman Melbourne developed a 30-second video that focused on the number of steps we take for granted each day. Due to its high quality production, the video was suitable for screening as a Public Service Announcement (TVC) on all the major television networks.
The video focusses on the number of footsteps an average person takes and how such simple things are taken for granted.
Results: The awareness campaign did extremely well on TV networks, securing approximately 600 free spots, reflecting an 1155% return on investment. 44% of event participants cited the TVC for prompting their participation in the Steps for Independence walk. One third of registrations for the walk came from outside the Melbourne metropolitan area – largely as a result of the TVC as it was the only promotional activity outside Melbourne. 77% of participants were under 35 years of age – the people most at risk of spinal injury. 85% of Facebook Likes on the event page were from people under 30 years of age. The largest participating team in the walk recorded over 300,000 steps in one hour (approximately 110km).