Macmillan’s DRTV ad recruits 50,000 hosts for World’s Biggest Coffee Morning

Howard Lake | 11 July 2013 | News

Macmillan Cancer Support's first DRTV commercial for the World's Biggest Coffee Morning helped the charity acquire 50,000 new hosts. It helped take total donations for the event from £10 million in 2011 to £15,007,000 in 2012, an increase of over 50%.

Magneto Films working with fundraising agency Burnett Works to create an advert with a documentary approach. Although Macmillan usually uses actors in its adverts, this advert feature a real family. Jo, Karin and their monther Val live in Essex and hold a coffee morning every year in memory of Val's husband, Pete.

Two versions of the advert

There are two versions of the advert: one delivers more brand messages about Macmillan, the other focusses on the pleasure of getting together and making time for what really matters.

In the more heavily branded version, the family talk about how important Macmillan were to them when Pete had cancer.

The ad has been screened since early June 2012 and Magneto put its success down to the fact that it featured real people telling their own story.

Magneto's Senior Producer Gaby Jeffs said: "We are delighted that the campaign has done so well for Macmillan.  We think one of the reasons our Coffee Morning advert was so successful is that it modelled the behaviour that we were asking our target audience to adopt, some hosts even went as far as placing a photo of their loved one amongst the cakes and cups. 

"Also featuring a real family meant that we were able to convey a genuine experience which resonated with our target audience."

The TV ad contributed to a 127% increase in pack registrations to 118,000, with an estimated 5 million people attending.

The World's Biggest Coffee Morning DRTV advert received an IVCA Clarion Highly Commended Award 2012 for Best Charity Ad, and was shortlisted for an Institute of Fundraising National Award this year. In addition delegates at last week's Institute of Fundraising National Convention in London voted the whole World’s Biggest Coffee Morning campaign as the "most world changing fundraising" campaign.
 

Macmillan's World's Biggest Coffee Morning DRTV advert (light branding) from Magneto Films on Vimeo.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.