Western Morning News (Saturday)
Live viewing of donkeys from home wins award
AN innovative feel good event that brought donkeys ‘virtually’ into people’s homes during the coronavirus lockdown has been recognised with a prestigious national prize.
‘Sanctuary From Your Sofa’, the brainchild of The Donkey Sanctuary based in Devon, was named Best Audience Engagement Campaign at the 2020 UK Social Media Awards.
Comprised of six half-hour live broadcasts from its international headquarters in Sidmouth via Facebook, the event gave people the opportunity to ‘visit’ the charity’s main herd of resident donkeys and be shown how their dedicated grooms were continuing to provide the highest level of care during the lockdown.
Cheryl Martin, director of brand and communications at The Donkey Sanctuary, said: “Bringing donkeys into people’s living rooms was a key objective of our digital strategy this year – before anyone ever uttered the word ‘ lockdown’ – and we’re all delighted with the success of our ‘Sanctuary From Your Sofa’.
“We were up against some big hitting brands and agencies across the three categories, including Samsung and the NHS England Covid-19 campaign: ‘Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives’. So, for us to have won is incredible and we couldn’t be more proud.”
The viewing stats of The Donkey’s Sanctuary’s first ever interactive virtual visitor experience on Easter Sunday,
April 12, makes for impressive reading. The total reach was 1.1 million people; 440,000 viewers, 41,000 total engagements and 8,300 comments – from Hawaii to New Zealand. This meant audiences watched 347,000 minutes of live donkey interaction on the day – equivalent to 232 days.
Most impressively, during a time when many parts of the charity sector were struggling with fundraising due to the lockdown, this award-winning event helped The Donkey Sanctuary to achieve a +110% year-on-year increase in online revenue on the event day.
Sanctuary From Your Sofa was also a finalist in two other categories: Most Impactful Social Media Innovation and the Best Low Budget Campaign.
Due to coronavirus, all six of The Donkey Sanctuary’s UK sanctuaries were temporally closed to the public. The charity knew how much their supporters were missing the donkeys and the sanctuaries themselves. This tranquil environment was deemed exactly the break people needed from the anxiety caused by the pandemic. The charity decided if the public couldn’t come to the sanctuary, then the sanctuary would come to them, and Sanctuary From Your Sofa was born.
The UK Social Media Awards celebrate the best in UK social media communications.