We Built This Town

Drawing inspiration from Tearfund’s unique approach - to teach, this film flips the traditional charitable appeal on its head. The voice over and film begin as we’ve seen a million other times in these charitable TVC’s; telling the viewer about the community on screen.However, in this film, the community takes matters into their own hands and breaks the fourth wall, as they begin to talk directly to the audience, pointing out the British voice overs' mistakes. The voice over doubles down and tries to get something right, before finally giving up and handing the narration of the film over to the community, allowing them to tell their own stories.

Casting, locations and final script were developed and approved on the ground in rural Burundi. We even worked with the community to ensure their lines in the script were their own words. The success of ‘We Built This Town’ is not only that we created a DRTV ad unlike any other, one that achieved an average donation of £248, but that thanks to Tearfund's unique community training, we were able to collaborate with the stars of the ad to authentically represent their experience.