The Toy Appeal & Giving Tree is an annual campaign for Communicorp UK’s regional radio stations, in partnership with retail owners LandSec, that usually collects thousands of toys donated by people in shopping centres, prior to Christmas for charities to distribute to disadvantaged children.

However, in 2020, the campaign needed a different approach. With social distancing and sanitisation safety measures in place due to COVID19 , Communicorp wanted to run the campaign, within the limits at the time. Usually before Christmas, UK retail spaces are full, however during the peak coronavirus outbreak, people were cautious about visiting indoor spaces, and at this time footfall was drastically reduced. The Toy Appeal typically distributes 10,000 toys to children, so the absence of this would have been felt by charities and the children they support.

Turning to GWD, Kristy John, Station Director, Capital South Wales, set out with her team to add digital giving devices to their pop-up events, running in three separate shopping malls across the UK.

A hybrid digital and physical donation solution for a multi-site fundraising campaign.

“Due to the health & safety restrictions placed upon us due to the pandemic we had to adapt our traditional donation mechanic for our charity donation initiatives with Landsec. We worked with GWD to offer an additional contactless donation option alongside the traditional toy and gift collection, which proved extremely popular and delivered some fantastic donation’s across each Landsec location.”

Kristy John

A bespoke solution was needed. Coordinating with event designers, GWD supplied Donation Stations integrated into display stands, featuring immersive animation to grab attention. The complementary graphics and branding added to Donation Station screens further enhanced the display.

In the course of 22 days, the Toy Appeal Donation Stations collected over £20,000 in contactless donations, making it possible for the charities to deliver a total of 5,800 toys to children across the UK, despite being cut short by further restrictions placed on all but essential retail by government.