Guilt-Free Dining

Background

The Hoxton Apprentice is the centrepiece of an innovative new business and community development - Training for Life. It is a training restaurant, which provides skills and training for homeless and long-term unemployed with all the profits made by the restaurant fed directly back into the charity. (Calling it a ‘training restaurant’ seems a little unfair as Time Out has recognised it as one of London’s top 50 restaurants.) The brief was to encourage people in local businesses that the Hoxton Apprentice was a great place for lunch – and for Christmas office parties.

Idea

The charitable status of the Hoxton Apprentice is what really makes it stand out from other restaurants – so the agency wanted a creative solution that would highlight this.

Unusually for a direct response task, they ended up with what was essentially a long copy ad. They created the concept of the Guilt-Free Lunch, because however how much you ate, or however you behaved, you would always leave the Hoxton Apprentice with a clean conscience because the money you paid for your food would be going straight to the charity.

The idea was a simple menu device featuring the mouth-watering dishes that are available but alongside stories of why you might be there in the first place. These were bitter-sweet tales of passing a colleague over for promotion, skipping the gym or getting a bit ‘carried away’ at the Christmas party. All things you might normally feel a bit guilty about – but not when you were giving to charity.

Results

This humorous approach led to an additional 60 to 80 bookings every time an ad ran.

Our Thoughts

As I’ve said a few times before, the most direct response you can get in advertising is a laugh. And these are funny, especially the ‘Bad News Brian’ ad. Further proof in this issue that charity advertising doesn’t have to be worthy and grave. (See too ‘Cevsiamo’ from RAPP Italy on page X).