Flying Toilet

Background

This pack forms part of Practical Action's Welcome Programme, which is designed to move people from casual one-off donors to committed supporters. Charity supporters like to feel their support is valued. So this pack focuses on a specific project and calls for a finite number of people to support it - the opposite of making supporters feel like their donation is a drop in the ocean. Its aim is to persuade 250 people to give a regular gift of just £8 a month to help fund the charity's work in the developing world, in particular to help with sanitation projects in Kitale, Kenya - a town plagued by 'flying toilets'.

Idea

In towns like Kitale, sanitation is so bad, people often have little choice but to use a plastic bag instead of a toilet, then throw it out of a window. Hence the local nickname 'flying toilet'. This formed the inspiration for the pack. How could you not open an envelope featuring the headline 'Flying Toilet Enclosed'? Inside the pack - and inside the (bio-degradable) plastic bag/mock flying toilet - the leaflet expands on the different projects with which Practical Action are improving sanitation in Kitale. It focuses on the 'cleverer' solutions that would be attractive to the target audience - intelligent, largely male, in their 60s and often with a background in science or engineering.

It was this audience that partly drove the choice of signatory for the letter. That, and the fact that the phrase 'flying toilets' made agency and client alike think of Monty Python. An email was dispatched to ex-Python Terry Jones, who said yes. Bearing in mind that to the audience of 55-plus men, the Pythons are something approaching gods, this gave the appeal even greater impact.

Results

As the pack has only just started to mail, and is being sent out as and when supporters come through the Welcome Programme, results are not yet available.

Target Audience

Practical Action supporters, the majority of which are male, 55-plus, intelligent and often with a background in science, teaching or engineering.

Size

Rather than being a bulk, one-off mailing, the pack is being sent out as and when supporters come through the Welcome Programme.

Our Thoughts

Personally, I think a lot of charities take the mickey out of agencies. They are demanding, difficult and smugly assume the rewards for their teams will be in knowing they are helping the less fortunate. Bah humbug. Now I don’t know if Practical Action is one of that ilk but I do know there is a good idea in this mailing which, with a bit more investment, could have been great.