In Mexico, outdoor advertising is still one of the most effective mass media to reach the population. It is also a pretty expensive one. For organizations like Red Cross such investment could literally take away from saving more lives.

For years smaller businesses have used "Perifoneo" to reach audiences out of home, it consists of loud speakers attached to vehicles going across town, announcing products offers and services.

Red Cross took this cultural insight as inspiration to activate their largest network of owned vehicles, their ambulances. And turned their sirens into a "perifoneo" media to remind Mexicans daily to donate.

In Mexico, the Red Cross is the first responder during natural disasters, car crashes, and pandemics, but to attend to emergencies, they rely on donations from people because they are a non-governmental humanitarian assistance organization. There are no other healthcare institutions in the country that operate with funding coming from people's will.

There is a belief that donating just once is enough to help, but the reality is that, in order for the Red Cross to continue operating, it needs donations on a constant basis. That's why they need to keep spreading the same call to donation message all across the country throughout the entire year.

To reach a wider audience and get the funding they need, they need mass media, but every penny spent is a penny needed to save lives. The objective is to get more donations with no budget.

The Red Cross turned to the largest and loudest outdoor media network, one they own: Ambulances. Inspired by a technique called "perifoneo" in Spanish, which is a type of sound-led advertisement very common in Mexico, consisting of a sound system mounted on a vehicle that broadcasts a message on several streets through a speaker.

Slightly modifying one of the authorized siren modes to say “dona” the Spanish word for “Donate” and still alert keeping within Mexican laws and regulations. No other healthcare entity operates with donations, making this siren call exclusive to Mexican Red Cross.

With more than 448 owned ambulances, with a sound reach of 700 feet each, running 24/7 and covering the 32 states of Mexico. Running 24/7 and covering the 32 states of Mexico. We created a new media with nationwide reach staying within the emergencies budget.

If you ask a Mexican how to donate to the Red Cross, they know; A product of years of communication. The real challenge and objective is reminding Mexicans to do so, often.

The barrier of not having a media budget assigned, mostly because 95% of fundings goes for emergencies, was enormous to overcome given our objective. How to create a daily presence that would catch their attention and encourage them to make donations to support the Red Cross operation?

Using our own ambulances that are constantly attending to emergencies and moving all around the country was the solution.

We built a plan to fully equip each ambulance, resulting in a new audio-led OOH medium that reaches practically the entire country, delivering the message to millions of people at a moment they are already connecting to the Red Cross.

The first step was to verify that the siren's audio could be modified to include the call to action to donate. This step was straightforward and solved with RCA inputs on the audio system. After conducting a pilot test in three of the main cities in Mexico to verify the reliability of the project, we observed the incredible mobilization on the part of donors.

This led us to decide to scale it up to the 448 ambulances that simultaneously circulate in the 32 states of Mexico to generate the full coverage needed for this situation. Initially, the plan was to be active for three months. However, due to the incredible results in donations, the Mexican Red Cross decided to turn this innovation into a brand asset to activate it whenever needed during the year.

448 ambulances used as a media channel (largest number of ambulances fleet in Mexico) generate in three months:

• 5.9 billion outdoor impact

• With an estimated cost of +2.5 M USD in outdoor advertising

• All within the emergencies budget.

• Zero media budget

• +24% donors vs last year

• +39% donations vs last year

• Average individual donation increased by 20%

• 6.8 USD Million (+39% vs 2021)

The Red Cross turned to the largest and loudest outdoor media network, one they own: Ambulances. Inspired by a technique called "perifoneo" in Spanish, which is a type of sound-led advertisement very common in Mexico, consisting of a sound system mounted on a vehicle that broadcasts a message on several streets through a speaker.

Slightly modifying one of the authorized siren modes to say “dona” the Spanish word for “Donate” and still alert keeping within Mexican laws and regulations. No other healthcare entity operates with donations, making this siren call exclusive to the Red Cross.

"Mexico is a loud country, and Mexico City is its loudest, no one visits this fine city without asking as least once “What’s that noise?”

Source: https://mexicocitystreets.com/2016/09/29/sounds-mexico-city-revealed/

Although in the rest of the world sound advertising media in the street is irrelevant, historically, and culturally in Latin American countries it is of great importance for both small businesses and large brands.

We decided to give the characteristic sound of ambulances a twist with a call to action that would encourage people to donate to the Red Cross. In Mexico, there are too many messages in the sounding in the air, but sirens are always heard. By adding a message, it becomes even more noticeable and effective.