In Germany, an ambulance should arrive within 8 minutes after an emergency call. But this has changed dramatically. Every second emergency response is delayed.

With the omnipresence of smartphones, onlookers have become a huge issue. These “civilian paparazzi” take photos of victims and impede life-saving rescue operations with their sensationalism. Although it became a criminal offense in January 2021, action is rarely taken against ruthless onlookers.

Turning smartphones from problem boosters into problem solvers. We have developed an innovative digital pattern, that functions like a camouflaged QR code, to trick smartphone cameras.

When an onlooker tries to capture a rescue operation with his smartphone, a message will pop up on the display - confronting the onlooker with his wrongdoing and educating him about proper behavior at accident scenes.

Our strategy was to initiate a public debate on the dangers of gawking with a surprising and smart technical solution. Instead of conventional PR activities, we used our client’s direct touchpoints to confront onlookers with their misbehavior.

But our goal was not only to reach wrongdoers, but to initiate a debate among politicians, rescue organizations and the public.

Ambulances, paramedics and equipment have been covered with the innovative digital pattern. The pattern was adapted to each object individually. During a pilot phase with 33 ambulances at 22 rescue stations, the design was further optimized with scientists and engineers. Today, the design is already in use throughout the country at Johanniter Unfall-Hilfe, one of Germanys biggest rescue organizations with 65,000 employees and 750,000 rescue missions per year. The innovative design will soon be extended to other emergency organizations around European countries.

After 4 months, 22% of Germans already said they had heard of the idea. 40% consider the idea “very helpful” (Survey Akkon University). The number of paramedic-job-applications at Johanniter Unfall Hilfe doubled in the months following the campaign. The media coverage after the presentation of the live-saving design raised international attention and awareness about the dangers of gawking. Newspapers and television shows around the world started to report about the idea. The media responses got shared by thousands of social media users.