Trees obscuring a mysterious path in shrouded light with shafts of sunlight piercing through to the forest floor

Unlocking a secret forest

ROI of 5.29 and a response rate of 14.2%

Integrated DM and digital appeal

For many years Cherry Tiger talked to the RSPB about ensuring that all channel activity supports their direct mail appeals and provides a coherent journey for the supporter, on email, digital and social. For the past 18 months, we have taken a different approach to our appeal briefs, presenting ‘campaign concepts’ to the RSPB demonstrating how a concept comes to life across channels.

RSPB Secret Forest campaign envelope front and reverse mockups in a composition with the caption "You hold the key to a secret forest".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign letter faces including a donation form laid over each other

RSPB Secret Forest campaign 3d leaflet mockup with the caption "Come on in...".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign leaflet inner spread with a forest and carpet of bluebells image with the caption "Let's explore...".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign leaflet inner spread with a bright orange mushroom image with the caption "What's down there?".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign leaflet inner spread with a close up image of a bird with the caption "Look up...".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign leaflet inner spread with an image of a bat at night with the caption "Night-time is magical".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign leaflet inner spread with an image of a bird of prey flying in blue sky with the caption "Can you hear that?".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign leaflet inner spread with an image of a reptile on a rock with the caption "Watch your step...".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign leaflet inner spread with an image of a white horse in a landscape with the caption "Look who's coming...".

The RSPB had a unique opportunity to buy some new land in the New Forest. Not only would this enable them to protect and restore unique habitats, but for the first time would enable them to ultimately open a brand new reserve to the public for the first time in the New Forest. They needed to raise £500,000 so it was vital that the campaign had a real resonance with every single person that saw it. As well as direct mail, the appeal would also be supported by a landing page, have equivalent email and follow up communications and be promoted via social media activity too.

RSPB Secret Forest campaign website landing page mock up fading to the bottom with the title "Help unlock a Secret Forest".

RSPB Secret Forest campaign website landing page mock up bottom half.

Our winning concept brought to life the area of land the RSPB were hoping to buy. It was an area of forest that would be made open to the public for the first time – even RSPB conservationists didn’t exactly know the full species mix they would find there – so we found a really strong proposition in the idea of the supports “holding the key to a secret forest”. We wanted to demonstrate the wonderful wildlife that donors would be able to protect and demonstrate that this really was a magical place, worth protecting for future generations. The landing page developed the story further and contained video content too and the key and secret forest motifs performed very strongly in digital and social channels.