Two years of films for Amazon’s Multibank initiative

The challenge

The Multibank is the charity initiative Gordon Brown started with Amazon: surplus essentials, nappies, toiletries, household goods, moved from warehouses to families who need them, through a coalition of charities, local leaders and businesses. It began in Fife with an aim of helping 13,000 families in its first year. It helped over 50,000.

A story like that only works if people actually see it. Amazon needed it told twice over: first internally, so the staff making the donations happen could see the impact of their work, and then externally, as the initiative launched in England as Brick by Brick, where the film had a harder job: help persuade more businesses to join the coalition.

Our solution

We were brought in at the start, and brought back the following year as the story grew:

• Year one: internal comms films around the Fife project, with Gordon Brown thanking the Amazon teams whose donations and warehouse work made it possible.
• Year two: full coverage of the Brick by Brick launch event in Wigan, the initiative’s first launch in England, with John Boumphrey, Amazon’s UK country manager, telling the story from that first email from Gordon Brown onwards.
• One shoot, two jobs: the launch footage was cut for Amazon’s internal channels and into an external film for prospective corporate partners.
• Fast turnarounds on every edit, with minimal amends, so the films landed while the announcements were still news.

The results

• Films used across Amazon’s internal communications in both years
• The launch film supported the push to grow the coalition, with national partners like Unilever, PepsiCo and Morrisons alongside local Wigan businesses
• The initiative has kept growing since: six Multibanks across the UK, more than 600,000 families helped