2020 Winner
2020 Winners
United Way Halifax
No Home
With a 1% residential vacancy rate in Halifax and increasing rents, hundreds of people were already facing a housing crisis before COVID-19. Approximately 20% of Nova Scotians spend half or more of their income on housing alone and could be at risk of homelessness.
Since the pandemic began, homeless shelters have seen an increase in demand and a lot of unfamiliar faces. There are a number of situations that could lead to people needing to access a shelter during the pandemic: people who were released from jail without a support plan, people couch surfing who are no longer able to do so, or people who are simply experiencing a loss of income.
But there are only 175 shelter beds in Halifax. All beds are full, and some people have been turned away. Some shelters have had to reduce capacity even further to maintain a safe social distance for occupants. United Way Halifax opened three additional pop-up shelters to distribute 50% of the shelter population to other spaces. But these efforts require much more resources and staff as the demand continued to grow for those in need.
The primary objectives were to highlight the impact of a pandemic on the lives of people experiencing homelessness in our city and increase donations.
Insights and Strategy
In the early months of the pandemic social media became a place for everyone to connect and share the ways they were keeping busy while staying at home. On Instagram, the ‘Stay Home’ sticker became synonymous with stories of people doing puzzles, watching Netflix, and spending time with family.
As people grew frustrated with having to stay at home, we provided some perspective by changing the world’s most popular Instagram sticker to instead read ‘No Home’ and accompanied by powerful images showing what quarantine looks like for less fortunate people.
The campaign started with a modest spend on Instagram story ads, disrupting people’s story feeds, while looking almost as though they were just another ‘Stay Home’ story. But as stay-at-home restrictions started to be lifted, we brought the concept to life through visually impactful out-of-home installations around the city.
Execution
With a limited budget, we reached out to friends and family, and used Facebook marketplace ads to gather props to visually tell our story in an impactful way, without having to exploit real homeless people. The props used for our Instagram ads then became real installations around the city accompanied by a concrete decal of our ‘No Home’ Instagram sticker.
Results and Impact
The out-of-home installations stopped people in their tracks and gave a voice to those without a home during the pandemic. As the installations made headlines and were shared on social, they became donation sites themselves as people started leaving non-perishable food, sanitation wipes, and other personal care items. These items were then collected and distributed to homeless shelters.
The story ads received a click-through rate of 1.1% (over 3 times industry average), while the installations received over 5 million earned media impressions across TV, digital, and print news. In just 3 weeks United Way Halifax saw a 117% increase in online donations, with a 866% increase in the number of donors. Showing that while people may have less to give, they were still compelled to donate.