Celebrating 200 years with random acts of kindness

Legal: Birkett Long LLP

Then, as the company was planning and preparing in 2020, ready to launch in January 2021, the unexpected happened, and the pandemic struck.

So, how did the team adapt the campaign to work in lockdown? It had to pivot, and the year of Random Acts of Kindness was born. In the end, this was an award-winning campaign and more effective than a series of events ever could have been. Here’s what happened.

Birkett Long and the community

For as long as we can remember, the community has been at the heart of Birkett Long’s business.

The firm’s community work generates enormous value, with colleagues involved in over 90 charities and not-for-profit organisations as volunteers, trustees and governors.

The anniversary strategy

Birkett Long wanted to use the firm’s 200th anniversary to reinforce its purpose and vision:

• To improve individual lives, businesses, and communities
• Be progressive thinkers, do things differently

Our BLTwoHundred: Random Acts of Kindness campaign would allow us to reach all the facets of our community by delighting and surprising the people that we work with and alongside. Throughout the year, we carried out as many random acts of kindness as we could in our community.

Activities included sending cookies to school staff rooms, bunches of flowers to recently bereaved clients, and celebration cakes to businesses that had moved offices. We sent over 1,100 care packs to our local hospices and over 360 to local GPs. We bought numerous afternoon teas, doughnuts, chocolate cakes, cookies, brownies, coffees, wine, cupcakes, sweets and jellybeans. Our staff donated 500 items to food banks, and we bought Christmas dinner for a group of local carers. And so much more!

Was the campaign a success?

This campaign has been successful on multiple levels, but the key measure for us is engagement. We have given unexpected gifts to over 3,500 people, including charities we work with, clients, business partners, suppliers, and colleagues.

We are also delighted that our campaign won the Excellence in Marketing category of the Essex Business Awards.

External engagement

The engagement generated during this campaign has been exciting to see, reinforcing our relationships in the local community over and above legal services.

We have surprised and delighted our clients during the pandemic, engaged with charities, and been involved with local organisations online, socially distanced or on tours of their premises, seeing first-hand where our gifts and donations are making a difference.

Having so many stories, testimonials and donations to talk about have meant our social engagement levels have improved. As a result, our followers and contacts are more likely to engage more regularly, and our colleagues are more likely to share with their friends and families.

Our 200 years’ experience has taught us it’s not just about knowing the law; it’s also about our impact on businesses and our communities. This takes us nicely into 2022 – Birkett Long is here for good!