Centrepoint: Breaking Point

Developed by Arthur London, Centrepoint’s Christmas integrated fundraising campaign, ‘Breaking Point’, took a potential impediment – fatigue around crisis appeals – and leveraged it to create a refreshingly honest and plain-speaking plea for support. It combined this stark messaging with design created to have maximum visual impact in order to generate cut-through at this competitive time.

Centrepoint supporters had given generously since the start of the pandemic and there was concern that the audience had begun to become tired of the number of crisis appeals over the last several years. So we chose to be honest: if you, as a supporter, were becoming fed up of crises, imagine how homeless young people are feeling. Having faced crisis after crisis, vulnerable and homeless young people are now reaching breaking point. It’s up to us to help them reach a vital turning point at Centrepoint this Christmas. The powerful campaign combined stark honesty with a bold visual style featuring arresting portraits of young people that appeared to be cracking to capture audience’s attention. The approach worked: in a year when 60% of charities didn’t reach their targets, the Centrepoint Christmas appeal beat its target by 11%, raising £2,558,913 and achieving an ROI of 4.174.