David's Unusables brought much-needed attention to Motor Neurone Disease in New Zealand. David (who is living with MND) sold his items on TradeMe (New Zealand’s equivalent of eBay) in a digital timeline reflective of his deterioration, with each listing revealing the devastating reasons the item had become unusable to him.

This bold act of turning an online marketplace into an education resource for MND was supported by editorial content and infomercials starring a New Zealand infomercial celebrity. This created a media narrative that caught the attention of 1.5 million New Zealanders.

MND (Motor Neurone Disease) is an incurable condition that gradually causes muscles in the body to waste away – leading to the loss of every physical capability. MND NZ is a charity that supports people living with MND, their carers, families, and health professionals through support, education, advocacy and research. Despite having the highest diagnosis rate in the world, awareness of this condition in New Zealand remains very low. The brief was to raise the profile of MND in New Zealand as it has a big impact on the access to funding a charity, like MND NZ, can get. To achieve this, we needed to generate mass awareness with our campaign.

David's Unusables targeted the many New Zealanders who buy and sell used goods online to educate them on the debilitating effects of Motor Neurone Disease. David (who is living with MND) sold his items on TradeMe (New Zealand’s equivalent of eBay) in a digital timeline reflective of his deterioration, with each listing revealing the devastating reasons the item had become unusable to him. The listings, and David’s story, were amplified by a PR approach that targeted all of New Zealand’s key media outlets.

News media often focus on the immediate: “What’s happened TODAY, and how does it impact us NOW?” A debilitating, long-term disease such as MND, is hard to convey it’s impact when you’re up against more immediate – and arguably newsworthy – issues.

We took the timeline of David’s bodily deterioration, and condensed it into a dramatized timeline, people could access from the palm of their hands via TradeMe (NZ's equivalent of eBay).

The key message is simple: “Now you can see, every single day, the way a body suffers as a result of this debilitating disease.”

We aligned with medical bodies to secure ground-breaking statistics, created editorial content in mock-infomercial style for David Seymour to ‘sell’ his belongings, we contracted New Zealand’s Infomercial queen Suzanne Paul to add an element of celebrity, and we developed a campaign targeting all key media verticals: Television, News, Radio, Consumer, Regional, Social and Digital.

With a population of five million in NZ, our media landscape is limited, and highly competitive between media owners. Yet we managed to secure blanket coverage across all titles despite the inherent rivalry of news producers.

On launch day we targeted hero publications in each vertical:

- Television: Exclusive 6pm news bulletins to document David’s story on TradeMe

- Radio: A rolling series of interviews with David across key stations

- News: New research underpinning the importance of the story

- Regional: Local media celebrating David’s bravery in sharing his story

- Consumer: Magazine coverage focusing on the endorsement of celebrity infomercial personality Suzanne Paul

- Social & Digital Media: Providing a direct link to TradeMe, encouraging donations.

Across the course of the promotion we continued to drop updates, news, features and progress about David’s journey – culminating in a media narrative that charted the course of this ground-breaking initiative.

The listings were viewed 63,765 times, and the campaign reached 1.5 million New Zealanders (total population 5.52 million). The store generated $293,000 in FOC media value.

Even though donations were not a primary objective, this activity directly contributed over $7,000 to MND through the TradeMe store page.

This campaign made headlines, and the headlines told David’s story:

We generated much needed attention for MND through ‘David’s Unusables’, securing 41 individual PR articles, including from major news outlets such as:

Newshub live at 6pm

Radio New Zealand

Newstalk ZB

NZ Herald

Stuff

More FM

Newshub Online

Northern Advocate

MSN New Zealand

Whangarei Leader

NZ Doctor

And several more regional and digital publications.

This coverage was worth over $350k in advertising value equivalent and had 7.9 million impressions.

This activity has delivered a media ROI of $13 for every $1 spent.