An Post's Address Point campaign, created by JWT Folk in Ireland in 2019, gave homeless people a postal address linked to local post offices, unlocking access
An Post Address Point Turns a Postal Service Into a Lifeline for the Homeless
An Post's Address Point campaign, created by JWT Folk and launched in Ireland in April 2019, is a public service initiative that gave homeless and temporarily accommodated people a secure postal address linked to their nearest local post office, enabling them to access employment, education, healthcare, housing applications, and social services.
The campaign operates at a rare intersection of brand purpose and tangible civic infrastructure. Rather than producing a conventional awareness film, An Post and JWT Folk built an actual service — Address Point — and then documented its human impact through film. The result is a piece of professional services communication that treats advertising as proof of intent rather than declaration of it. Clapboard scores Address Point 71 out of 100, reflecting the campaign's exceptional strategic clarity and real-world utility, offset by the relative restraint of its single-asset creative output.
In Ireland, the campaign arrived at a moment of acute social pressure. Enda Kelly, Joint Managing Director at JWT Folk, stated in July 2019, as reported by Little Black Book, that Ireland had over 10,000 people without a home at the time of the Address Point launch. Without a fixed address, those individuals were effectively locked out of the systems designed to help them — unable to register for work, open a bank account, or apply for social housing. Address Point used An Post's existing nationwide post office network as the physical anchor for a digital proxy address system, turning infrastructure that already existed into a social safety net. The geographic reach of that network, stretching to every county in Ireland, was central to the campaign's viability and its narrative power.
An Post occupies a structurally distinctive position in Ireland's postal market. According to ComReg, Ireland's postal market had contracted further since 2017, a trajectory shaped by the long-term decline in letter volumes across Europe. CityPost exited the Irish letters market entirely in 2018, according to ComReg, and no new domestic or international entrant had entered the Irish letters market by 2019. That competitive context meant An Post was not fighting for market share in the conventional sense — it was fighting for relevance and public trust in a category under structural pressure.
JWT Folk's strategic response was to locate An Post's brand value not in the mechanics of mail delivery but in the reach and permanence of its physical network. Karl Waters, Creative Partner at JWT Folk, noted as reported by lbbonline.com that An Post's post office network stretches across Ireland — a fact that most competitors in the broader communications and logistics space could not match. In a market where digital-first challengers could replicate delivery speed and parcel tracking, the physical presence of a local post office in communities across Ireland remained genuinely differentiated.
The Address Point initiative gave that differentiation a social purpose. By framing the post office as a gateway rather than merely a transaction point, JWT Folk and An Post repositioned the brand within the 2019 brand refresh that, as reported by Adworld Ie, shifted An Post from a primarily postal service toward a digitally enabled organisation spanning delivery, e-commerce, financial services, and insurance. Address Point anchored that evolution in human need, giving the broader narrative credibility and emotional resonance that a product announcement alone could not achieve.
Address Point takes the form of a single film asset, produced in Ireland in April 2019 as part of An Post's broader creative programme with JWT Folk. The film documents the lived experience of people who used the Address Point service, grounding its narrative in testimony rather than constructed drama. That documentary register — presenting real consequence rather than hypothetical benefit — is the defining creative choice of the campaign.
Production credits for Address Point are not fully publicly documented across available sources. Karl Waters is credited as Creative Partner at JWT Folk, with Enda Kelly serving as Joint Managing Director, both cited by lbbonline.com in their commentary on the campaign. The creative approach they oversaw reflects a deliberate restraint: the film does not use actors or constructed scenarios. Instead, it allows the structural injustice of the address barrier to speak through its human subjects, positioning An Post as the enabler of resolution rather than the hero of the story.
This narrative discipline is consistent with the broader JWT Folk creative strategy for An Post in this period. The agency's November 2018 campaign, Send Love This Christmas, as reported by Marketing Ie, featured real Irish people including expatriate Alison Griffin, Irish Naval Service seaman Katie O'Leary, and married couple Conor Biddle and Sean Smyth — a commitment to authentic casting and lived experience that carried forward into Address Point. Where Send Love This Christmas used television, video-on-demand, and radio across a broad media mix, Address Point concentrated its creative investment in a single film, relying on the weight of the service itself — and the awards recognition it subsequently earned — to extend its reach beyond a conventional paid-media schedule.
Address Point generated verified, quantifiable real-world results at a scale uncommon in public service advertising. More than 1,000 people used the service within its first ten weeks, representing approximately ten percent of Ireland's homeless population at the time, according to adworld.ie. By December 2019, the service had secured postal addresses for approximately 10,514 homeless people across Ireland, according to adworld.ie — a figure that directly maps to Enda Kelly's July 2019 statement, reported by lbbonline.com, that Ireland had over 10,000 people without a home when the service launched.
The campaign's award record substantiates its creative and strategic credibility across multiple international juries. JWT Folk and An Post won a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2019 in the Sustainable Development Goals category, as reported by lbbonline.com, with the jury recognising the campaign for bringing An Post's purpose to life through a genuinely functional service. Address Point also won a Bronze Award at the Clio Awards 2019, according to adsoftheworld.com, and took two Bronze awards at Eurobest 2019 — one in the Direct category and one in Brand Experience and Activation — as reported by lbbonline.com. An Post and its agency partners additionally won the Corporate Social Responsibility award at the European Excellence Awards 2019, according to adworld.ie.
Taken together, these results position Address Point as a benchmark within Irish public service advertising for 2019: a campaign where the service was the creative idea, the creative idea generated measurable social change, and that social change earned recognition from the most competitive global advertising juries of its year.
Address Point was a public service campaign created by JWT Folk for An Post in Ireland in April 2019. It gave homeless and temporarily accommodated people a secure postal address linked to a local post office, enabling access to employment, healthcare, housing applications, and social services across Ireland.
Address Point reached more than 1,000 users within its first ten weeks, according to adworld.ie. By December 2019, the service had secured postal addresses for approximately 10,514 homeless people across Ireland, according to adworld.ie, representing a significant proportion of the country's homeless population at the time.
JWT Folk and An Post won a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2019 in the Sustainable Development Goals category, as reported by lbbonline.com. The campaign also won Bronze at the Clio Awards 2019 and two Bronze awards at Eurobest 2019, in the Direct and Brand Experience and Activation categories respectively.
Address Point was created by JWT Folk for An Post and launched in Ireland in April 2019. Karl Waters served as Creative Partner and Enda Kelly as Joint Managing Director at JWT Folk, both cited by lbbonline.com as key figures in the campaign's development and public commentary on its impact.
Address Point sat within An Post's 2019 brand refresh, which as reported by adworld.ie shifted the organisation from a primarily postal service toward digitally enabled services spanning delivery, e-commerce, financial services, and insurance. The campaign gave that strategic pivot human credibility by demonstrating the social value of An Post's nationwide post office network.
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