The primary target audience was Doctors of the World’s fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Since these people were already engaged with the brand online, we believed they would have an interest in getting behind the cause and signing the petition. The secondary target audience was friends of fans. Our goal was to engage these new customers, get them to begin following Doctors of the World online and, most importantly, sign our online petition.

We created a social campaign directly targeting Doctors of the World’s fans and followers to get behind an ambitious goal: To Help Make Ebola Fighters Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. We did this with a serious of social posts, rallying them to join the cause and sign our online petition. After one week, we personally delivered the petition, with tens-of-thousands of signatures, to the Time Editor-in-Chief, Nancy Gibbs. In these ways, the campaign was built entirely around a direct marketing idea and elements.

Doctors of the World is one of the primary organizations combating Ebola, with thousands of healthcare workers in West Africa. It is a dangerous, often thankless fight. They wanted to show the world just how brave these people are. Our campaign’s goal was to do just that. For this reason, it was absolutely relevant to the brand.

Time Magazine announces its Person of the Year around mid December. To beat this deadline, our campaign launched 1 month earlier – on November 12th. The campaign launched with an online petition, to help make Ebola Fighters Time’s Person of the Year. People were driven to this petition by a series of shareable social posts, stating our aim and rallying support. After 1 week of petitioning, we compiled all signatures (tens-of-thousands), and personally delivered them to the Time Editor-in-Chief.

Despite zero budget, the campaign achieved very quantifiable response results, in a short space of time. For example, we aimed for 10 000 signatures in one week. We got that in the first 24 hours. And it didn't stop there. One week later, Doctors of the World personally delivered tens-of-thousands of signatures to the Time Editor-in-Chief, Nancy Gibbs. Additionally, our social campaign (designed to rally fans behind the cause) gained immediate traction. In fact, the campaign was shared rapidly and thus helped increase Doctors of the World’s social following by more than 70%. But most importantly of all, Ebola fighters got the ultimate recognition – the front cover of one of the world’s most influential magazines.

By mid November 2014, the Ebola crisis was no longer a leading news story – even though 140 new cases were reported each day, and thousands of brave healthcare workers were risking their lives to fight the disease. Doctors of the World was one of the organizations on the ground in West Africa. They wanted to get the Ebola fighters from their organization and others, back into the spotlight. Unfortunately, they had zero budget and any big media buy is expensive. We needed an idea to get Ebola fighters the recognition they deserve, without spending a cent.