Every year, more than 3000 children go missing in Pakistan, a large number of whom are trafficked quickly to various parts of the country, with countless cases of abuse and mutilation. There are few mechanisms to aid in the recovery of children, including the fact that traditional media to raise awareness does not penetrate into remote regions.

Roshni Helpline is an NGO that is dedicated to recovering missing children and reuniting them with their families. As a non-profit, Roshni needed a unique communication tactic which would help them with their mission. Berger Paints also has a vision to contribute to social good through a relevant use of their products.

Our brief was to come up with an exceptional idea that would not only connect directly with audiences in raising awareness about missing children, but would also directly help in recovering them.

"Truck Art" is a distinctively Pakistani cultural icon: transport and goods trucks traveling across the country are customarily painted and decorated with elaborate floral patterns, animals, icons, portraits and calligraphy. These brilliantly painted works of art often include portraits of famous personalities - actors, sportspersons, military chiefs, politicians. The trucks also travel far and wide within the country.

The idea was simple: in place of famous personalities, portraits of missing children were showcased on these trucks. The work was done in collaboration with conceptual artist / anthropologist Samar Minallah Khan and her team of truck artists, who painted these portraits in the style of truck art with a helpline number.

The toughest issue with solving child abduction cases in Pakistan is that children are often removed very quickly from their original location, thus making them close to impossible to find in a large country where there is very little infrastructure to locate missing persons.

To address this, we knew we would need a device that was non-stationary and mobile: a missing child poster in one location will not help as much as a message that travels through the country.

This had to be a campaign in which each execution would connect with thousands of people all over the country at a minimum budget, while not only raising awareness of child abductions to a greater audience, but also providing an apparatus to locate missing children through direct response.

On a business strategy level, the activation fit perfectly with the brand vision of using paint to bring about a positive change.

In collaboration with Ms.Khan, we worked with local "truck artists" - painters who specialise in the unique skill of illustrating on trucks - to ensure authenticity. Using paints supplied by Berger Paints, the artists replicated the last photograph of the missing child and painted the backs of these trucks with the portrait, a helpline number and information about the child.

Trucks were selected to ensure the routes would be covered in every direction possible, starting from the original location where the child went missing; the vehicles drove through both urban and rural areas.

We started with a first wave of 20 trucks, and painted the portraits of the most recently reported cases. The campaign plans to paint a total of 100 trucks in the next six months.

The campaign was highly effective: so far, seven children have been recovered and reunited with their parents due to callers calling the number on the trucks. More than 3,000 calls were received on the helpline from 39 different cities in all parts of Pakistan, of which 500+ were leads for missing children.

Besides finding children, the trucks have made hundreds of thousands Pakistanis aware of the steps to take when children go missing.

Local police have acknowledged the efficacy of, are now collaborating in implementing, this new form of what has been called the "Pakistani version of the milk carton". The Governer of the largest state in the country is going to launch the second phase.

For the Berger brand itself, visits to their Facebook page rose by 395% in the first week alone of launching the campaign.