Today, in France, 9 out of 10 deaf children are equipped with hearing aids to improve communication. However, these devices only allow them to hear voices, but not music.

The National Institute of Young Deaf People (INJS) & Damien Quintard (sound engineer awarded at the Emmy Awards) have conducted research to allow deaf people to feel musical frequencies thanks to a vibration system that will, over time, be set-up in concert halls.

But this innovation doesn’t come cheap.

We had to find a way to raise money to finance the research and the deployment of this technological innovation. All this, without the INJS spending a single euro.

To finance this major advancement for deaf people, INJS has chosen the artistic road by launching: the “D.E.A.F” album: the first donation campaign that costs you nothing to make a difference.

Available on Spotify, each time the album is played, the revenue of the streaming will be donated to support this research.

The album is composed of 7 empty tracks, full of meaning.

1. Play this album.

2. Play it over and over again.

3. That's it.

4. You’ve already made a donation

5. To enable deaf people

6. To hear live music for the first time.

7. More info on INJS-PARIS.FR

The more the album is played, the more visibility it gains.

The more the album is played, the more donations it generates. The more the album is played, the more rooms will be equipped.

Generations Y & Z are two of the generations that are most involved in social causes. They know how to mobilize quickly and effectively thanks to social media, digital.

For these generations, the commitment must be as simple as a tweet, a click on change.org or even a sharing of petitions on a Facebook wall. However, these generations are not necessarily the ones with the most financial resources.

Our approach was therefore to create an insensitive way of engaging, highly integrated in their usages and that really generate funds.

By partnering with Spotify France (9.6M monthly users, 47% of whom are under 25 years old*), we allow these generations to generate donations by simply offering their listening time. Indeed, each stream generates a remuneration converted into a donation.

*Source : Spotify Internal 2019, Comscore, France, Janvier 2019, Monthly Unique Visitor

The campaign was conducted in three phases.

1/ UNVEILING

In collaboration with Spotify & Universal, INJS was able to release its album D.E.A.F.

A press release explaining the concept of the operation and its purpose was published on the INJS website and sent to a targeted audience of journalists, opinion leaders and politics.

2/ MEDIA AMPLIFICATION

In addition to organic broadcasting, 20 media have graciously opened their advertising spaces to give visibility to the campaign.

3/ STIMULUS / BOOSTING

After one and a half week of campaign, influencers, close to the target, became involved. Each one of their messages, was adapted to their respective thematic. In this case, gamers invited their communities to play the album during their Twitch lives; Cinema YouTubers asked their followers to play the album as soon as they entered a movie theater.

Within the first week of May, the album has been played more than 200 000 times. And, this is just the beginning of a campaign, that will live endlessly.

In addition, millions of people have already been exposed to the operation (thanks to donated media placement & PR). This massive exposure improved awareness of deaf people conditions, in France.

More specifically, the donated media placement involved:

- 234 Shopping centres

- 35 commercial galleries

- 20 websites (Yahoo, Figaro, Figaro madame, JDN, L'internaute, Les Echos, Le Parisien, L'Equipe, Sport & Style, France football, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Magic Maman, Konbini, Melty, Gustave & Rosalie, Hygge, MyTF1)

- A cumulative audience of 1.2 billion - 120K€ worth of donated media

Finally, this campaign has been auto-financed in less than 24 hours.