First Call Fund / Fuelling Imaginations
Arts Centre Melbourne
Issue 25 | December 2012
Agency
Ogilvy
Creative Team
Art Director: Sally Hastings Copywriter: Michael Punton Designer: Alice Kenny Creative Directors: Dave Scott & Kate Lightfoot
Production Team
Production Manager: Tracey Needham
Other Credits
Illustrator: Andrew Hopgood Account Manager: Erin Aherne Client Executive: Nicola Barrans
Date
July 2012
Background
Arts Centre Melbourne believes every Australian child should have access to the performing arts. So each year they give disadvantaged children the opportunity to see live performances through the First Call Fund. Their objective was to raise $34,000 for this cause but with many other charities focusing on graver and more urgent issues, it was important to find a strong hook to help this cause stand out.
Idea
The insight was to try to appeal to the audience's desire for children to enjoy the same kind of childhood they did - one filled with imagination and creativity – rather than sitting in front of an X-Box or iPad.
The idea was to demonstrate how the performing arts can fuel a child’s imagination, encouraging them to transform everyday objects through play into things of magic.
A rock becomes a jewel, a stick becomes a scepter and you the Royal ruler of all you see.
Results
The mailer surpassed its objectives, achieving 176% of the target. That's the power of an imagination fuelled by the performing arts.
Our Thoughts
Maybe it’s the nice little drawings, but it would be easy to miss how very skillfully and professionally this piece has been put together.
What the photos here can’t bring to life is quite how dramatic it is. It has to be unfolded in order to reveal its meaning. In other words, while selling the role of theatre to growing minds, the mailing is a piece of theatre in its own right.
If you already believe that computer screens are rotting our kids (and, in this instance I suspect, our grandkids’) brains, then this appeal will fall on fertile soil. As, indeed, it did.