Legacy Marketing: How to do it right + examples

During these Unprecedented Times™, people have been thinking more than ever about their money - both in this life and after it. That’s why we were excited to take on the challenge of developing a creative legacy campaign primarily aimed at those who’ve never engaged with WaterAid before. We successfully explored this potential new avenue for the sector with our TV ad, “What Jack Gave”.

The film aims to close the gap between those in the UK and those around the world who lack access to clean water. It shows that giving to WaterAid in your will and transforming the lives of those you’ve never met won’t just mean leaving a legacy, but starting one. As our first legacy marketing activity, we were able to approach the subject with a fresh perspective, enabling us to disrupt the sector and break away from classic legacy tropes. Here’s what we learnt…

• The number of charitable bequests is set to grow by 30% over the next decade with the pandemic highlighting not just our own mortality in general, but the importance of charities and the necessity of will-writing
• The average annual value of charity legacies will jump to £4.2bn from 2022 to 2026, up more than a quarter compared with the preceding five years
• Legacy income was already up by 12.5% in the first quarter of 2022, compared with the year's worst affected by the pandemic.

• There's a huge opportunity for legacy storytelling beyond DM packs and TV ads!
• There’s set to be a huge intergenerational wealth transfer from baby boomers, and fortunately for charities, a huge proportion of them are easily reachable on Facebook if your social campaign has cut-through. This means that there should be an increased importance on storytelling to create social media content.
• With the population living for so much longer, people start thinking about their wills twenty or even thirty years before they shuffle off their mortal coils, increasingly focusing on what to do with their money as they approach pensionable age.

Working with Don’t Panic brought a completely fresh perspective to legacy advertising and enabled us to create something powerful, something that captures what legacies really are about the love we have for others.

Dom Abranson, Legacy and In Memory Lead at WaterAid

Why not aim beyond your loyal members? When it comes to people’s wills, a cold audience is a barrier that can be overcome by engaging work - and the best way to find that is by heading straight to newbusiness@dontpaniclondon.com