The National Sea Rescue Institute relies entirely on public donations to fund its life-saving work on South African waters. Asking people already under financial pressure to give, with nothing tangible in return, is one of the hardest briefs in marketing. In 2024, TDMC and the NSRI answered it with "Win a Car" - a campaign that paired emotionally honest storytelling with sharp, data-led targeting across Meta, Google and TikTok. On a media budget of just R179,000, the campaign delivered a 15X return on investment, a 3.4X return on ad spend, and over R2.7 million in direct online donations in seven months - while opening up an entirely new donor base in regions the NSRI had never effectively reached before.
01
Executive Summary
02
Introduction
For more than 50 years, the NSRI has been synonymous with water safety in South Africa - a volunteer-led organisation built on preventing drownings and saving lives through rescue operations, public education and community involvement. Towards the end of 2023, the NSRI brought TDMC on as its performance marketing partner, with a brief that came with real constraints: every rand spent had to be a rand that was going toward saving a life, and every campaign had to earn the public's trust and generosity without offering anything in return beyond the knowledge that their donation mattered.
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The Problem
The ask was competing against real financial strain.
Donating is rarely top of mind when households are stretched thin, and unlike most marketing campaigns, there was no product or service being exchanged - only impact, and the hope that people would believe in it enough to give.
The donor base was concentrated in the wrong places.
The NSRI's awareness had historically been strongest along the coast, while non-coastal regions - Gauteng in particular, home to a significant share of South Africa's wealth - remained under-represented, despite having real capacity to give.
Donations weren't building lasting relationships.
Much of the NSRI's fundraising activity drove one-time contributions rather than ongoing support, leaving long-term, sustainable funding largely untapped.
Every one of these challenges had to be solved within a tight, donation-funded budget - meaning the strategy needed to work harder per rand than a typical campaign ever would.
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The Solution
TDMC built "Win a Car" around four strategic pillars: emotionally resonant storytelling backed by real user stories, efficient video reach to stretch a limited budget further, cross-device optimisation to maximise that reach, and data-led targeting to find donors the NSRI hadn't reached before.
An incentive with emotional weight
The campaign's core message - "Help Save Lives, Enter to Win a Car" - paired a tangible incentive with an honest, human appeal. Authentic, real-life storytelling gave the cause a face, ensuring the campaign felt relatable rather than transactional, while the raffle gave people a reason to act in the moment.
Data-led targeting to reach new donors
In-depth data analysis identified non-coastal regions as a significant, under-tapped opportunity - audiences with the financial means to give, but limited prior exposure to the NSRI's work. Targeting was built around this insight from the outset, prioritising these regions without losing focus on existing coastal supporters.
A multi-channel funnel built for each platform's strength
On Meta, a demand generation funnel built awareness and affinity first, before retargeting warmed audiences with high-intent, conversion-focused raffle promotion. Google Ads captured high-intent search demand directly, supported by Performance Max to focus spend on the users most likely to convert. TikTok extended reach into a younger, lower-cost audience segment, doubling as a testing ground for short-form creative that could drive engagement cost-effectively.
Built for the long term, not just the campaign
Beyond the raffle itself, retargeting and engagement strategy were designed with one eye on what came after - encouraging one-time entrants to convert into monthly donors, so the campaign's impact would outlast its seven-month run.
05
Results
Against a media budget of R179,000, "Win a Car" delivered results that outperformed expectations on every measure that mattered.
- 15X return on investment, driven by data-led targeting and efficient, cross-channel execution.
- 3.4X return on ad spend - R3.40 in direct donations for every R1 spent on paid media.
- Over R2.7 million in direct online donations within the first seven months of 2024, excluding EFT, SnapScan and Zapper payments not directly attributable to the campaign.
- 28% increase in donations and ticket sales year on year.
- 6.8 million impressions and 58,000 national users driven to the NSRI website, significantly expanding the organisation's reach.
- 111% increase in branded search volume, pointing to a wider halo effect beyond what paid media alone could measure.
- Gauteng became the NSRI's second-largest donor region, with 1 in 4 site visitors and 40% of donations coming from a previously under-represented area - proof the geographic targeting strategy worked.
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Conclusion
"Win a Car" proved that a modest budget is not a ceiling on impact when strategy and storytelling work in service of each other. For the NSRI, the campaign didn't just generate donations - it expanded who the organisation could reach, built a foundation for longer-term donor relationships, and demonstrated that every rand entrusted to TDMC was put to work as carefully as the cause demanded. It's the kind of result that matters most in this space: not just performance on a dashboard, but funding that goes directly back into saving lives on South African waters.
