The Marie Curie daffodil appeal is one of the most recognised fundraisers in the UK, supporting terminally ill patients with a range of services funded through the generosity of their supporters. One of their main fundraising drives is a direct mail campaign to known supporters, which always contains their daffodil insignia in one form or another.
The mailing house in question had run the work previously and the daffodil had taken the form of a flat badge, which had been mechanically enclosed.
This year the badge had been replaced with a three dimensional artificial daffodil making mechanical enclosing impossible – not the result they desired.
Marie Curie realised the error with ten days to go and half a million three-dimensional daffodils to enclose, the job was outsourced to Flow for recovery.
The envelopes were gummed mailing wallets not designed to seal with a three-dimensional item inside. The filled items were five times the volume planned so storage and logistics into the mail network needed reorganising with greater resources. Time was the biggest challenge, after submitting an estimated price, testing the job and receiving the stock we had less than eight days and over 2500 man-hours to successfully apply.
Two teams of fifteen staff were trained to quickly and carefully enclose and bundle the items, with the second team trained to ensure that the unusual shape package actually sealed via ongoing quality assessment checks before the items were bagged and stored.
The campaign deadline was achieved and 500,000 fundraising letters ensured the Marie Curie charity could continue to offer much needed support to families across the UK.
