We’ve already hit the ground running in 2019 with new events, award nominations and exciting projects. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, we wanted to take a look back at 2018 and share some of our highlights of a what was a very special year.
2018 started with a bang as we emerged victorious at BAFTA in a dramatic Live Final of The Creative Shootout – and that was just the beginning of a big year for awards.
War Child UK’s #EscapeRobot won 8 awards in total – including our first ever Gold Dolphin at Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards. It went on to see huge success at some of the biggest celebrations of content marketing, beating cross-sector brands at The Drum Content Awards, The European Lovies and the EVCOM Industry Awards, to name a few. Third Sector’s Kirsty Marrins even named #EscapeRobot as her #1 favourite film in her top-10 digital charity campaigns of 2018.
This wave of success came after a record-breaking 2017 and, as a result, catapulted us 21 places to 15th in Televisual’s Top 50 Production Companies 2018. We also placed in the Peer Poll’s Top 10 for the first time ever!
We closed the year with another head-to-head competition, once again beat leading agencies and big brands in the name of more inclusive LGBTQ+ representation at the Pride Brand Makeover 2018.
One of our biggest highlights of 2018 was our events, which saw hundreds of marketers, social media managers and content producers gather for a series of peer-to-peer inspirational lightning talks. We welcomed brilliant speakers from UK charities such as RNLI, Cancer Research UK and Teenage Cancer Trust, who generously shared their experiences and insight behind some of the most well-known campaigns of the year.
A special thank-you to CharityComms who helped us launch our first ever benchmark report. Inspired by our events, the report aims to gather and share insight in order to provide an overview of how and why charities are using content. After surveying a wide gamut of UK charities, the report revealed that investing in a content strategy almost always leads to better ROI with video. The 2019 survey is live now so take the survey and win a £100 Amazon voucher!
We continued to encourage charities to take a fresh and brave approach to their content and helped our clients produced a host of exciting and effective content. Parkinson’s UK targeted a younger demographic with a fun take on awareness-raising, while Scope led the millennial charge for disability equality with a rallying manifesto film. Our animation for World Vision helped them gain petition signatures to call on the UK government to end violence against children and Anthony Nolan reached millions with their stem cell donation appeal.
While video remained our bread and butter, we became more multi-disciplined than ever in 2018. Crisis’ Corporate Christmas Card campaign included a double page spread in the Financial Times while World Hepatitis Alliance’s global awareness campaign featured print assets produced in 8 languages. Through our Creative Shootout win, we partnered with FareShare on their first ever national call for volunteers with a campaign integrated across social, digital and print as well as the design and build of a completely bespoke website.
Twitter continued to be a long-term client, to whom we delivered more than 40 videos across a range of topics from raising awareness around homelessness for Shelter to a series of #WhoToFollow videos in which celebrities and influencers shared their favourite Twitter users.
New clients and partnerships gave us lots of opportunity travel the globe. Our production team flew to Kenya with Book Aid International to capture the magic of reading, and to Uganda with International Rescue Committee (IRC) to share an inspiring example for refugee integration and assimilation around the world.
In September Climate Group took us to New York as their official creative partner of Climate Week NYC, one of the key summits in the international calendar. This added to our ongoing partnership with the International Fundraising Congress (IFC), who invited us to speak once again at their leading event in the Netherlands, as well as their progressive conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
We hope 2019 brings more opportunity to punch above our weight and prove that strategy and creative is the most powerful combination – regardless of size or budget.
We’re already pleased to be shortlisted for 2 Charity Film Awards, which are due to be announced later this year, and to be among the 9 agencies selected to take part in the Creative Shootout 2019.
We will continue to grow our profile in the third sector and help even more charities achieve their objectives with content. After seeing the huge impact of responsible organisations at Climate Week, we also hope to work with more responsible corporates and brands on their CSR and sustainability communications.
You also might have noticed that we rebranded our events towards the end of last year and are excited to make ‘Relay by Raw London’ bigger and better in 2019. We’re on the lookout for speakers, guests and sponsors to make it even more valuable for those producing content in the third sector – so get in touch if you’d like to be involved!
And last but by no means least, we plan to continue to be passionate about what we do and who we do it for. Thank you to everyone we worked with in 2018 and we look forward to working with you again this year!
