Transforming War Child UK’s regular giving acquisition with a celebrity-led YouTube campaign

War Child UK, the only specialist charity for children affected by conflict, has been striving towards securing a safe future for every child living through war for over two decades.

The challenge

The majority of donations on their website were one-off. Their existing fundraising strategy was geared towards attracting more of the same.

But to achieve their long term goals, they also needed a regular stream of unrestricted funding – the kind charities can only get through regular givers.

What we did

We recognised the potential of innovation so we proposed a novel approach – a video appeal campaign.

This campaign was spearheaded using creative content from one of their newest celebrity ambassadors, Gillian Anderson, featuring her visit to Ukraine.

We saw the success of the organic video, so we developed a dedicated paid video strategy, continually refining it with new creative ideas and optimisation tactics.

What we achieved

The campaign has been running successfully for over eight months, with excellent results.

Since its inception, this video campaign has been the largest contributor to regular donations, accounting for 25% of all regular donations.

War Child UK committed a significant media budget for video activities in 2024 based on this success.

They also asked for our direction on changes that could be incorporated into the shooting of a second video to build on the first video’s success.

“We have absolutely loved working with Platypus on this video campaign!”, said a delighted Lilian Ainley, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at War Child UK.

“They have been continuously proactive, innovative, and strategic in their approach and this has resulted in some amazing results. The team have taken the time to interrogate results, keeping our organisational strategic goals in mind, and this has led to a series of data-driven optimisations.

“We’ve always felt that the campaign is in really safe hands with Platypus. They jumped onto a reactive opportunity and turned it into a strategic, always on campaign.

“We couldn’t have asked for more!”

This campaign came from Platypus Digital’s role as a key strategic partner in War Child UK’s ongoing digital fundraising.

We saw the opportunity that one of their celebrity supporters represented to increase income, and helped the War Child UK team turn that brand awareness into income – and we can do the same for your charity.

Book a call with Matt to find out how.

Find out how we can help your charity

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“I've worked with the Platypus team multiple times. They're the agency we always go back to because of their broad range of skills, consistently great team, good sense and pragmatism and the fact that hey are always a joy to work with."

"Platypus is the best search marketing agency I've worked with in over 20 years. No other agency has the level of paid search knowledge than they do."

“In a sometimes confusing and murky digital world, the guys at Platypus are a breath of fresh air. They know their stuff, they tell us it straight and really care about the work we do together. There’s a true sense of partnership between the Sightsavers and Platypus teams, which makes working together more productive and more enjoyable.”

"Platypus' social media review was incredibly useful for us. It helped us identify areas for improvement and provided practical recommendations that we could implement right away. The team's expertise and collaborative approach made the process smooth and very enjoyable!"

“The Platypus team were a dream to work with on this campaign. They clearly didn’t just use a boilerplate approach with us – they were flexible, adaptable, and quick to respond. What’s more, they are true Facebook Ads experts. It was the combination of their approach and expertise that made this campaign so successful. Thanks, Platypus!”