ABF The Soldiers’ Charity — Thanks Soldier

Digitally flying the festive flag for soldiers

On a cold, crisp festive evening, we used Facebook to project thousands of people’s faces onto the White Cliffs of Dover in a stunning show of support for our troops serving abroad. The activity saw ABF The Soldiers’ Charity almost treble its number of Facebook fans.

ABF The Soldiers’ Charity were looking to raise their profile over the festive period, with the specific goal of growing their Facebook presence. Our thinking focused on a simple yet powerful piece of insight — at Christmas, many spare a thought for soldiers serving abroad, away from their families and friends.

So, we set about creating a way to help people do just that, and almost trebled the charity’s number of Facebook ‘Likes’ in the process! We created "Thanks, Soldier!" — an interactive Union Jack that took users’ Facebook profile pictures, tinted them red, white or blue and added them to the flag.

Nothing like a bit of personalised patriotism!

These new supporters could then play with the interactive flag, filtering to display only their friends, solely celebrity supporters or, if they really wanted to, a flag dedicated solely to themselves. A powerful Call to Action prompted them to invite their friends to join the campaign, before the big day.

The conversation takes off

We knew "Thanks, Soldier!" would spark a conversation and were primed to engage people with stories of the charity’s brilliant work with injured soldiers. What we could never have prepared for was an overwhelming outpouring of support — hundreds of people spontaneously used the charity’s Facebook page to post comments wishing British soldiers abroad a Merry Xmas and letting them know that those back home were thinking of them.

Press and celebs swell the ranks further.

The campaign was promoted using social media, on and offline PR and celebrity outreach. It was an instant hit, proving as popular with celebrities as the general public, with the likes of Gary Lineker and Joanna Lumley getting behind the campaign. And, what’s more, The Times, The Sunday Mirror and BBC Online all covered the "Thanks, Soldier!" projection, whilst CorpComms made it their digital campaign of the year!

Results

And so the time came to bring the campaign to a triumphant close. A huge version of the "Thanks, Soldier!" flag was projected onto the White Cliffs of Dover, showing all our soldiers serving abroad how much Britain appreciates their efforts. We think that’s worth a few photos.

During December over 6,000 people added their Facebook profile to the online flag. The number of ABF The Soldiers’ Charity’s Facebook fans jumped from 9,000 to in excess of 25,000 people who are committed to helping British soldiers.

Winner of 2012 CorpComms Best Digital Campaign

Thanks Soldier website design