Heaps + Stacks Launches ‘Less Alone Together’ for Loneliness Awareness Week

Timed to coincide with Loneliness Awareness Week (9th-15th June), London-based agency Heaps + Stacks is challenging the experiential marketing industry to rethink activation success metrics with the launch of 'Less Alone Together' – a campaign demonstrating how connection-focused experiences deliver superior brand loyalty and customer lifetime value. With latest ONS data revealing one in four UK adults experience regular loneliness – rising to nearly one-third among 16-29 year olds – the campaign positions experiential marketing as a powerful tool for addressing consumer emotional needs while driving measurable business outcomes.

Beyond Vanity Metrics: The Business Case for Connection

"The industry has been obsessed with social shares and photo opportunities, but we're seeing diminishing returns on ‘surface level' only activations," said Keziah Wildsmith, founder at Heaps + Stacks. "Brands achieving the highest engagement rates and repeat attendance are those designing for genuine human connection rather than just vanity based social metrics." The agency's research, conducted with award winning journalist Chanté Joseph, reveals that 75% of gen z report feeling lonely despite constant online connectivity – presenting a significant opportunity for brands to differentiate through meaningful offline experiences.

CSR as Competitive Advantage

Heaps + Stacks is backing the campaign with 100 hours of pro-bono consultation for London organisations Strangers in the City and Lonely Girls Club – demonstrating how agencies can leverage CSR initiatives to test and refine connection strategies before client implementation.

"This isn't just altruism – it's R&D," explained Keziah "We're using these partnerships to develop replicable frameworks that deliver measurable community impact alongside traditional KPIs. Clients are increasingly seeking agencies with proven social impact credentials."

Less Alone Together will roll out:

• A report by Chanté Joseph examining the intersection of loneliness and brand experience
• An accompanying film showcasing successful connection-focused brand activations
  
• Workshop series for London-based brands seeking to integrate connection strategies into their experiential marketing
• Community events in partnership with Strangers in the City and Lonely Girls Club
  Methodology toolkit for measuring emotional engagement and community building effectiveness.

Why now?

The campaign's launch during Loneliness Awareness Week amplifies industry conversation around the £2.5 billion annual cost of loneliness to UK businesses through reduced productivity and increased healthcare costs. Experiential marketing could be both a commercial opportunity and societal solution. The campaign addresses growing client demand for purpose-driven marketing that delivers both social impact and commercial results. Recent industry surveys show 68% of brand managers prioritising 'meaningful engagement' overreach in 2025 activation briefs. Furthermore, it highlights a critical gap in experiential marketing, where brands often prioritise Instagram-worthy moments over meaningful engagement, the campaign looks to call out measuring social impact alongside traditional marketing metrics.

"Loneliness rewires the brain to interpret neutral social situations negatively," noted the campaign's research. "Brand experiences have the unique opportunity to reverse this cycle by creating positive, memorable interactions that build trust and community."

Measurement and ROI Framework

Unlike traditional activations measured primarily through attendance and social metrics, Less Alone Together introduces connection-specific KPIs including:

• Attendee return rates and cross-event participation
• Qualitative sentiment analysis and emotional engagement scoring
• Long-term brand affinity tracking among participants