Targeting a younger audience for PDSA
Following a pitch win back in March 2019, PDSA approached us with a big project. They wanted us to help plan their fundraising strategy and produce supporting collateral and events to attract a younger, more digitally active audience.
As the UK’s leading veterinary charity, PSDA wanted their fundraising guide and supporting material to be informative and motivational, but visually appealing in a way that would capture the attention of a new generation of supporters. The guide would support event participants and give them essential tools to start them on their fundraiser journey.
The big challenge is that we feel our current fundraising guide is stale and too busy. We want it to be clean and inspiring, utilising the brand in a fresh way to attract a different, younger audience.
Optimise
When we began working with PDSA, their fundraising guide and supporting booklet – which was then called ‘100 Ways to Fundraise’ – felt outdated and uninspiring.
As a result, PDSA were struggling to get new recruits and needed something fresh to boost the relationship they had with younger supporters.
We approached them with two design proposals for the fundraising guide. The first was more in line with their current fundraising material and represented the ‘traditional’ PDSA branding. The second was a complete revamp and drastic departure from what they currently had in place; the copy was stripped back and the tone retargeted towards a new generation of fundraisers. To our delight, PDSA went with the second.
Elevate
For any charity, the fundraising guide is the first contact point in the supporter journey. It’s a one-stop guide to who, what, why, how and when.
Once we’d been given the go ahead by the client, our design team produced a complete redesign and created a unique style that stood out from previous PDSA fundraising material.
The fundraising guide was stripped to a single colour – the bold PDSA pink – and coupled with a new font, fun graphic elements, quirky animal illustrations and a catchy title (#FundraiseLikeABeast).
In line with the target audience, this was initially created as a digital download, readable on mobile devices, followed by a print version. This new style was then developed across supporting material, including:
- Event Starter Pack: Everything You Need to Get Going
- 50 Ways to Fundraise: Idea Inspiration
These are currently being launched across their online and social platforms.
Transform
To further transform and diversify their fundraising product range, we were asked to create a new virtual event that would encourage supporters to engage with the charity.
After researching competitor activity and thinking about the motivations of our target audience, we decided to tap into the ‘challenge’ element of virtual events. This led to the creation of Dog’s Dinner Challenge; an event that plays on the fun of hosting a meal for friends or family with a ‘side dish’ of fundraising for pets in need.
