If you happen to pass a bright red bench in your local town today, complete with a gold plaque, it’s worth pausing to read what it says. Rather than memorializing someone who has died, the inscription honors someone who has lived – a survivor of a heart condition. It’s part of a British Heart Foundation (BHF) initiative celebrating real people and their stories through permanent memorial benches, with 65 installed so far.
‘In Living Memory,’ which was created by the charity’s agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, also marks the company’s 65th anniversary and spotlights the integral treatments and scientific advances funded by the BHF. After all, cardiovascular disease is one of the UK’s biggest killers, with someone passing away from a related issue every three minutes.
For Claire Sadler, chief marketing and fundraising officer at the British Heart Foundation, the campaign stems from a pivotal shift in how the charity talks about its impact. “We had a big moment refreshing and launching our new research strategy,” she explains. “We have a very clear focus in terms of stopping heart attacks before they happen, saving more people from heart disease and supporting those living with conditions.”
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That strategic shift brought with it a need for greater clarity and specificity in communications. “We know from doing that that those who know exactly where their donations go have a higher consideration to donate,” Sadler explains. “What was important for us with this campaign is not just landing that BHF does lifesaving research, but it was the specificity of that. So, what are you funding and, importantly, what impact does it have on people’s lives?”
Those specifics extend into the science itself, including BHF-funded work using AI to identify heart attack risk earlier. “What AI is really great at doing is analyzing and mining lots and lots of data very quickly,” Sadler explains. “AI can detect things much quicker than it might take for a human to do so.”
From a creative standpoint, that sense of scientific progress and optimism was central. Franki Goodwin, chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi, says the work needed to balance hope with urgency. “This is not just about getting old and your heart wearing out,” she says. “These conditions can happen to any age, can be prevented and can be intercepted early – and that’s a wonderfully positive story.”
The creative idea emerged early and confidently, says Goodwin. “The team pulled me into a room and said, ‘We’ve got it.’ That’s always a very exciting meeting because you know that no one’s gonna dare if they don’t really believe.”
The idea was to subvert a familiar symbol of remembrance, she says. “What if we did this idea where we take this idea of remembrance and turn it into physical installations that are there to inspire donations and to tell the story of research with real people?”
While the 65 benches neatly mirror the charity’s anniversary, she’s clear that the focus goes far beyond that. “The anniversary story is a nice one to weave in, but let’s be honest, that’s a story that’s celebratory, but really the biggest story is the research and the people who are surviving.”
Executing that idea carried real responsibility. “It’s very easy to write down on a piece of paper, do a nice mock-up of a bench, but when you take that to BHF, they know their responsibility is, well, ‘We have to help you find those people and we have to make sure that there’s a duty of care.’”
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That duty of care shaped everything from casting to production. Survivors were identified through close collaboration between Saatchi & Saatchi and BHF’s ‘Heart Stories’ and research engagement teams. “Finding the stories is one thing,” Sadler says, “But then also thinking about making sure we tell those in an authentic way and that people’s own voices and own experiences can come through really strongly.”
The resulting footage is deliberately unscripted. “These are conversations that are real conversations,” Sadler explains. “They’re talking about their conditions and they’re talking about their conditions with loved ones… it’s where we’ve got a window into quite a private, intimate conversation and that gets quite emotional.”
For Goodwin, the emotional weight of the project landed fully when the benches began to appear in real life. “One of our producers just broke down,” she says. “She was just so moved, because all the filming was done, but then the real bench is starting to go in at Brighton and Hull and they’re going to be there. That’s a permanent thing.”
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Visually, the benches are designed to stop people in their tracks. “They are striking,” Sadler says. “You can’t help but notice it and stop and look and read it.” Painted in BHF’s signature red, they stand in contrast to traditional memorial benches nearby. As Goodwin puts it, they are “this icon of hope and progress.”
That permanence is intentional. “The benches are permanent, or semi-permanent,” Sadler explains. “They’re there for the next five to 10 years.” More than a media execution, they act as a long-term storytelling platform. “The bench gives us a wonderful storytelling mechanic. They are, by their nature, a place where people sit side by side and talk.”
In a charity sector facing declining donor numbers and increasing competition, the choice to lead with hope is deliberate. “Positive emotion within the charity sector is really hard,” Goodwin says. “Because a lot of these stories are very hard to tell.” Ultimately, the team hopes the benches do what benches have always done: invite pause, conversation and connection. “I do hope people sit on them and have conversations,” she adds.