With the run up to Christmas being a very important time for charities, when many collect the bulk of their annual donations, Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) has rolled a touching and heart-rending campaign that showcases just some of the services it offers homeless people.
Called “A Cup of Kindness” the TVC was created by Conor Ferguson and Jonny Speers and tells the simple story of someone visiting Merchants Quay Ireland’s day centre for the first time. He is intimidated at first but as he sits pondering his cup of tea trying to make sense of the bustle around him, he starts to see that this slightly chaotic environment is actually warm and welcoming and is populated by staff who want to support service users in any way they can.
Carol Casey, Head of Funds, who was the lead client on the project, says: “We wanted to create a Direct Response TV ad to air during the winter months. An ad that would deepen peoples understanding of our services and encourage them to donate to MQI.
Authenticity is a core element of MQI’s brand and appeal. Ideally, we wanted to work with people who were already familiar with the day-to-day work of Merchants Quay, and who we were confident would represent the service and clients in a sensitive and authentic manner.”
According to Conor Ferguson, who wrote and directed the campaign. he and producer Jonny Speers had created a web film for MQI, ‘A Place of Hope’, in 2016, which the client felt resonated not just with donors but with the staff on the ground, who are very protective about how Merchants Quay is portrayed.
“When we were making the film, I was really struck by the kindness and lack of judgement that I witnessed there and by the almost friend-like relationships between the staff and service users, many of whom had serious challenges, many of them weren’t necessarily aware of the wide range of service at MQI. They just came for the free tea. And then, when I got the brief I remembered this and it seemed like a small but might idea to pin the ad on: the fact that at Merchants Quay, every cup of tea tells a story.
“We only had a few hours to shoot the ad in. So I had to be disciplined, I storyboarded out the set-ups and we did are best to get them all in the can. But there was very little room for shooting re-takes – what we got we got, and moved on.”
According to Ferguson, when it came to the voiceover, they used Amy Buckley, a project worker with MQI, who knows the challenges that service users face every day. “I was thrilled when she agreed to do it. It was a really important part of the authenticity I wanted to show,” he adds.
The main character is the only actor, Conor Lambert, in the piece. “We had to recruit a few extras on the day – it was very spontaneous stuff. And some people very definitely didn’t want to be featured on camera. But we were pretty lucky overall,” Ferguson says.
Credits
Client: Merchants Quay Ireland
Head of Sponsorship: Carol Casey
Brand Manager: Lema Murphy
Copywriter: Conor Ferguson
Production Company: Speers Films
Director: Conor Ferguson
Producer: Jonny Speers
DOP: Kevin Treacy
Offline Edit: Rob Hegarty
Online Edit & Grade: Eoghan McKenna
Audio Post: James Daly @ Bounce Sound (with the kind support of Moynihan Russell Studios)
