The Background
We were approached by Teenage Cancer Trust to help develop a new fundraising appeal, highlighting just how urgently they need donations to support teens and young people facing cancer.
They came to us with a punchy brand and a vital cause, asking for two propositions and matching concepts that could flex across social, out-of-home and print.
The Brief
The brief was to build a fundraising appeal that could land with both cold and warm audiences — driving income now, while also strengthening positioning for the long term. They wanted two creative routes tested side by side, to see which positioning actually got the best response.
Teenage Cancer Trust also wanted to surface a hard truth: the current healthcare crisis is hitting diagnosis, treatment and waiting times for young people, with potentially devastating consequences.
The Work
We started by developing and refining two propositions to test against each other — one playing up urgency through a more positive outlook, the other through a starker, harder-hitting one, so we could see which performed best.
From there, our creative team built standout concepts that reinforced the core messaging with bold, direct headlines. Teenage Cancer Trust always feature real cancer survivors in their creative, so it mattered to us that the imagery reflected the real emotional weight of their journey — not a sanitised version of it. We steered away from anything overtly upbeat and instead leant into direct look-to-camera shots, letting the imagery do the heavy lifting alongside the copy.
We handed over the master creative, which Teenage Cancer Trust's in-house team then built out themselves — OOH on digital screens across the UK, plus social assets for Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. The campaign has also picked up wide coverage across print and mainstream news. It's still running today.