Friends of the Earth are running an SMS-led campaign which gives supporters the opportunity to have their photos on display at Waterloo Station.

Following the success of its recent Bee Cause campaign that embraced the use of SMS in fundraising, Friends of the Earth have launched an innovative fundraising campaign that allows people to donate to text in, or upload, their photos of what makes the world special to them. The photos could then be shown on the new 40m digital motion screens at London Waterloo station.

Kat Heath, project manager, said: “We just wanted to extend that kind of marketing, especially the SMS aspect, and take it a step further. We’re really thinking that visual campaigning and marketing is the way the marketing world is going at the moment.

“We wanted to go into that a little bit further. We don’t want to talk at our donors, we want to talk with them, and this invites them to let us know what makes their world amazing. We’ve all got personal reasons for why we want to save and protect the planet and this is just inspiring thousands of people with everyone’s images.”

The campaign is the idea of marketing agency Watson Philips Norman, who won Friend’s of the Earth’s Agency Challenge. Hundreds of agencies entered the competition, with the ‘Big Picture’ idea coming top.

The Big Picture is largely a fundraising project, with individuals paying £3 to send in their photos. Some of the photos will then be displayed on the boards at London Waterloo between 24 – 29 March. All the photos sent in will be featured on Friends of the Earth’s website.

Everyone whose photo appears on the boards at London Waterloo will be texted or emailed to inform them when they will be on display so they can go and see their photos on the giant screens.

Everyone that donates will be followed up by a telemarketer, in an attempt to convince them to become a regular donor through direct debit or Open Fundraising’s mobile giving platform Mobilise. The telemarketers will be able to see the photo sent in by the individual they are calling in an attempt to make it more of a conversation about what is special to them in the world.

The Agency Challenge was worth £100,000, which includes all media, agency and stand costs and the cost for telemarketers.

Heath said that if the campaign is a success, Friends of the Earth plan to undertake in more similar fundraising schemes.

Friends of the Earth want to be the sort of charity that people feel they can have a conversation with, Heath said: “I am just genuinely excited about it, I’ve been working on it for about six months and it is a lot of work that has gone into it and we just hope that everyone will be as excited as we are about it.

“We’re the first charity to use the screens, and as far as I’m aware, we’re the first sort of charity to have done anything with photos.”