British Heart Foundation direct mail campaign

UK charity the British Heart Foundation (BHF) gets to work de-fusing the UK’s childhood obesity time bomb with ‘Food4Thought’, an ongoing campaign by Grey London and Bloc Media that encourages healthy living among 11- to 13-year olds. It includes an online game called Yoobot where kids can create an avatar that does all the things they do in the real world, and enables them to interact with other Yoobots.

Ultimate Dodgeball, a new game based on the Hollywood comedy, Dodgeball, is the latest instalment in this integrated campaign. A letter went out to teachers, powerful influencers of this elusive age group, asking if they'd  like a Dodgeball pack for their school. Designed to appeal to children’s playful nature, the pack included everything required for a game of Dodgeball, as well as some useful fact-sheets.

Over one-third of schools (1,600 in all) ordered the BHF packs as a result of the direct mail campaign and, within two months of the campaign launch, the Yoobot site had received almost a million hits.

Dr Paul Marsden, social psychologist and social media strategist for Syzygy Group, says the key to the campaign's success was that good teachers have great ‘positional power’ over their students and were able to exert a positive influence on this age group. He adds that the combination of direct mail and digital was doubly effective.