The Background
Guide Dogs were looking for an agency to help them develop and launch a brand-new mass-participation fundraising product. With third-party and owned events already filling their portfolio, they needed something self-motivated — a challenge supporters could take on in their own time, in their own space. They came to us, and given our track record with these kinds of products, it felt like a natural fit.
The Brief
The brief was refreshingly open. Any type of event, as long as it brought in new supporters and gave existing ones something genuinely new. The Guide Dogs team had tested several MPEs before and wanted something they hadn't tried. Dog lovers were an obvious audience, but they didn't want to shut anyone out — the event needed to welcome dogs without requiring them.
The Work
We ran a sprint product development workshop with the Guide Dogs team, digging into potential audiences, their motivations, and possible personas before opening up to idea generation across a broad range of themes — from cause-connected territory around sight loss through to new technology. The process helped us cut through to the real brief, ruling out ideas that didn't fit and landing on accessible, exercise-based activities as the clear focus.
The result: a sponsored walking challenge. Participants walk 100,000 steps over one week in May to raise money for people living with sight loss. The campaign name? Walk Your Socks Off. Anyone who raised at least £50 got a pair of branded Guide Dogs socks as a thank you — a simple, satisfying reward that tied the whole thing together.
The Creative
We needed something genuinely new — a real point of difference that would make the campaign impossible to scroll past. So we created Mr Whiffy: a sock puppet character who became the face of the campaign. He represented both feet and walking, and gave us a playful, distinctive voice to talk to our audience in a way that felt fun, relevant and completely ownable.