It's only when something serious happens that people realise the importance of first aid, but by then it's already too late. This film made it possible for everyone to experience that feeling of helplessness without the actual risk, making them realise the need for proactive proper education.

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We wanted to give people the experience of what it feels like not being prepared when suddenly faced with a life or death situation.

So we hid our message inside a funny fail video, and made it interactive so that people had to engage with, and affect the outcome of, the film directly. What starts out as a funny fail compilation then shows a young girl in a hot dog eating competition. Suddenly, the girl chokes, and no one knows how to help. Interactive questions pop up, and the viewer have to help by answering what to do. Each of their answers affect the audio of the film, and we hear the dad doing whatever they answer. The girl is only saved if all questions are answered correctly, but if not - they are told they know enough to help and immediately urged to sign up to learn first aid.

We recommend to try the experience yourself: https://shockingfails.com

We made a microsite to function as a host for the film, so people could be able to interact with the film directly. Because we focused on shock effect and the "fail concept" we needed to have a different sender than the Red Cross to spread the film/link in social media. We got a few bloggers and influencers to start posting the movie May 2nd. We also managed to bring with us the best media partner in this campaign. NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) immediately liked the idea and gave us free space in virtually all surfaces May 2nd.

The film spread almost entirely through organic shares on Facebook, and over the next few days it was covered in national news outlets, by international press and even shared by the Norwegian princess Martha Louise.

• Strong national coverage in the launch week

• 185.000 unique visitors in little over a week

• 95% of viewers took the test and watched the film to the end

• 6,300 people immediately signed up for more first aid knowledge

• Covered over 100 times across small and large media outlets across the country.

• Chronicles and reader posts have been spread in local and regional media.

• National evening news picked up the film and boosted the cause

• Attention in almost all national and regional media

• Coverage in Politiken (DK) and the Berlindske Times (DK)

• Shared and used globally by ICRC and IFRC in September as of the International First Aid Day

• The film is watched in 157 different countries

First aid has been communicated many times before without creating much involvement, as many have become almost immune to general reminders. This time, we wanted to give people the experience of what it feels like not being prepared when suddenly faced with a life or death situation.

So we hid our message inside a funny fail video, and made it interactive so that people had to engage with, and affect the outcome of, the film directly. This was work made to connect to the target audience and through interaction engage them to share and follow an immediate call to action.

The target audience was set to a very generous "everyone in Norway", but they wanted to reach young parents especially - as first aid is critical for any parent with a curious toddler to know. This is also why we chose to narrow the first aid brief to revolve around choking.

First aid has been communicated many times without creating much involvement. This time, we wanted to give people the experience of what it feels like not being prepared when suddenly faced with a life or death situation.

Therefore, we chose a strategy that would surprise and engage the viewers to the point where they no longer could act indifferent to the message.

Norwegian Red Cross wanted to spread awareness of the importance of first aid knowledge. With a small budget, they wanted a creative solution that would lead to 5000 Norwegians signing up to learn first aid with Red Cross.

The fear of something serious happening to some of our closest is inherent in most people. However, most people are a bit indifferent to learning first aid, as they don't think about anything happening to people around them. It's only when something happens that people realize the importance of first aid, but by then it's already too late. We found the insight that 6 out of 10 Norwegians think they know enough first aid, but that in reality only 1 out of 10 actually know enough to help in a critical situation.