Penny Appeal Canada
Re-imagining narratives about Ramadan
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Penny Appeal Canada is a young, faith-based charity that provides aid and development both at home and abroad. Like many Muslim charities, the bulk of their fundraising occurs during the holy month of Ramadan. We were asked to create a integrated fundraising campaign that would help them unlock a new phase of growth.
Challenge
For Ramadan 2021, senior leaders at the charity set ambitious targets for growth â double donations from the previous year. Up against a market leader with a sizeable brand and donor advantage, simply asking existing donors to give more wouldnât add up. Penny Appeal Canada would need to achieve significant growth beyond its base.
Strategy
We needed to achieve two distinct objectives in a short period of time. First, build awareness of the Penny Appeal Canada name with those who had never heard of the charity before. Second, get them sufficiently familiar with the charityâs work and nudge them to donate.
We divided our marketing activities into two separate campaigns.
We would start with a broad brand-building effort, one month before Ramadan. Our campaign would build awareness of the Penny Appeal name among a diverse spectrum of Muslims in English and French-speaking Canada and grow the pool of previously unseen re-targetable users.
During Ramadan, we would then re-target those âwarmâ leads with specific messages promoting Penny Appealâs charitable works and with a strong call to action to donate. We would a/b test multiple versions of our creative, to optimize our spending throughout Ramadan.
This approach reduced CAC costs significantly, and won the ROI Strategy Awards in 2021 for outstanding Return on Investment.
Creative
For challengers brands who want to grow, contrast (or being different) is the path to critical mass. So our message, tone and look and feel sought to challenge many of the stereotypes of Muslims and conventions in the charity category.
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Influencer stories
impact
Total donations raised during the one month of Ramadan
New previously unseen donors to the charity
Total revenue growth vs. Ramadan 2020
Increase in average donation value vs. Ramadan 2020
