Your Brand’s Next Evolution.
With more than 80 programs at 200 locations, Catholic Charities is Maryland’s largest private provider of human services. Every day, the non-profit serves children and families experiencing homelessness and poverty, individuals with intellectual disabilities, immigrants and seniors without regard to religion, race, or other circumstances.
CHALLENGE
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The COVID-19 pandemic eliminated the ability to host Catholic Charities’ annual Christmas Festival at the Basilica.
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The organization needed a virtual holiday experience that could preserve tradition, inspire giving, and unite the community.
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Maintaining emotional connection and donor engagement during a critical fundraising season was essential.
STRATEGY
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Conceptualized a month-long virtual holiday campaign to extend engagement beyond a single event.
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Launched Comfort & Joy, a daily digital experience featuring virtual concerts, interactive content, and community-driven moments.
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Executed a fully integrated campaign across television, radio, digital, out-of-home, and a dedicated microsite.
RESULTS
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Secured premium sponsorships from McCormick & Co. and Domino Sugar, validating the campaign’s scale and appeal.
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Increased donations and sponsorship revenue by 29% year over year.
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Drove 32 times more website visitors than prior in-person attendance and achieved a 200% increase in email click-through rates.
Virtually Everything You Need to Enjoy the Season- From Home!
The heart of the campaign was a microsite that all advertising and messaging drove to. This was the central destination for the community to visit and access virtual concerts, download recipes, and engage and share stories of giving on social.
Visit Microsite
Joy Alerts!
Participants were encouraged to sign-up for “Joy Alerts,” an email notification program that would notify recipients of the surprise activities and link back to the microsite for an immersive experience. This proved to be a key component to sustain audience engagement and yet another touchpoint for sponsor visibility. It also drove significant acquisition of new email list subscribers.
Sights & Sounds of the Season
The whimsical illustration style was brought to life in a 15 second TV spot featuring 2D animation and a custom music bed. Vitamin wrote all scripts in-house and utilized the same voice talent and music bed for both the TV and radio spots to give the campaign a unified tone. Take a listen for yourself!
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Fully Integrated & Immersive
Vitamin created a fully integrated campaign to announce, build awareness, and sustain engagement all December long. Comfort & Joy was seen and heard in Catholic Charities’ target geographies on everything from a 15 second animated TV spot, radio, outdoor billboards and transit, to social, programmatic, and features on local news.
Premium Sponsorships
Though this was the first year of the virtual campaign, Catholic Charities was able to secure premium sponsorships based on the strength of the creative concept and the organization is already in negotiations for sponsoring next year’s follow-on campaign, which promises to be even bigger and better based on the inaugural success.
The campaign results speak for themselves…
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29 % INCREASE in donations and sponsorships from 2019 to 2020
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32 x MORE SITE VISITORS than annual concert attendees
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200 % INCREASE in email CTR compared to prior email campaigns
