ABOUT

With an ageing donor base, acquiring more support from the under 60’s was a strategic imperative for the RNLI. For younger families their lifesaving work just didn’t seem very relevant. Yet the key to increasing awareness was waiting for us right there on the beach. Lifeguards.


Challenge
Over a third of children rescued from UK beaches last year were body boarders. But beach safety wasn’t part of parental dialogue. We needed to find a fun earworm, just like fire safety’s ‘stop, drop and roll’, that alpha parents would actively seek to teach their kids.

The Solution
We translated a core piece of RNLI body boarding safety advice into a truly memorable, sharable music track, ‘Hold tight, Hand up,’ together with a free Wave Safety pack. Taking a Cartoon Network approach and leveraging co-creation from 8-11 year olds we demonstrated how to stay safe in a fun way.

Results
The campaign reached the younger audience we were after and introduced a fresh generation of supporters to the RNLI. In fact 92% of respondents were new recruits. Although fundraising wasn’t as important as beach safety awareness, they have also been very generous with donations.