A childish letter

Background

The Foundation for Queen Silvia Children’s Hospital raised funds to pay for

toys, activities and gardens of rest and recuperation for the 500,000 children who stay at the hospital every year.

They wanted to contact both previous and future donors and ask for a small donation.

Idea

To bring to life the need for toys to keep the children’s minds occupied while they were in hospital, the letters were not mailed directly out to the target audience. First they were given over to the children in the hospital themselves. They were asked to play with them. Only after they had had fun were the letters mailed on to the right addresses.

Each letter was a unique testimonial to the fact that children still need to be children, especially when they are unwell.

Results

Donations to the foundation increased by 320% compared to the previous year and hundreds of new donors were signed up.

Our Thoughts

The folks at MarketReach in the UK have been talking about the fact that in a virtual world, Mail is real. The fact that you can touch it, read it, smell it, listen to it and even eat it makes it work in a very different way to digital media. Mail’s physical properties mean that it can make not just a stronger impression on the brain but a longer-lasting one.

What I love about this is that it is doubly real. Not just an object which you pick up from the mat, handle and consider, but also in the sense that there is a real child evident in the very real scribbles.

When we talk about personalisation as one of Mail’s strengths we usually mean personal to the recipient. This works so well because it personalizes the sender.