The Connection
The Background
The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields sits right in the middle of the UK's homelessness crisis: Westminster. They help people sleeping rough get off the streets and into a home. Sounds simple. It isn't. Most of these people have been let down by services for years, so trust has to be earned back first — sometimes starting with nothing more than a phone charger or a hot shower. From there, a team of specialists steps in to help with everything from substance use to health and psychological support.
The Brief
Before The Connection could raise more money, they needed more people to know who they were and what they actually do. So the brief was awareness first: get people who live and work in the area to notice, remember, and care. We'd judge success on media reach, but also on the stuff that actually matters — website visits, newsletter sign-ups, donations. Get that right, and the fundraising follows.
The Work
We went down to The Connection's centre just off Trafalgar Square to see the operation first-hand. That visit gave us everything we needed to build the campaign.
Two things became the foundation: the brutal fact that the average age of death for someone sleeping rough is 43, and the small, unglamorous front-line services — showers, chargers, laundry, food — that quietly become the first step toward saving a life.
Out of that came Dying for Connection. Gritty, direct, hard to look away from. Every headline does double duty: it tells people what The Connection actually offers, while pulling them into a story they won't forget.
The Results
1,293,335 — impressions delivered
804,842 — people who saw or heard the ad
1.6 — average frequency per person
7,529 — clicks generated
0.58% — click-through rate
2,380 — new visitors to The Connection's website
804,842 — people who saw or heard the ad
1.6 — average frequency per person
7,529 — clicks generated
0.58% — click-through rate
2,380 — new visitors to The Connection's website