The Auberge des migrants is a French NGO that supports refugees stranded in camps at the border between France and the UK. In 2020, donations hit a new low due to a lack of media coverage, and the sanitary crisis. With no budget, we had to find a way to generate donations. We helped 10 migrants hijack Amazon, by sharing their living conditions in the reviews of the products they needed the most. The products were in a wishlist that anyone could make a donation.

The French NGO Auberge des migrants supports the refugees stranded at the border between France and the UK. This year, their living conditions got even worse with the sanitary crisis, while the absence of media coverage made them almost invisible, leading donations to hit historical lows.

Our objective was simple: raise donations and awareness about the migrants’ living conditions, without any budget at all.

To remind everyone that donating even a few items can make a difference, we decided to write it down on the only place people shop during the sanitary crisis: Amazon. We helped 10 migrants from the camps hijack Amazon, by sharing their living conditions directly in the reviews of the products they needed the most. All products were gathered in our Wishlist to generate donations.

In this already difficult context for the migrants who are gradually falling into collective oblivion, the pandemic has only made things worse. Short-term volunteers could no longer offer their help in the field because of the lockdown and the donors, also impacted by the crisis, were less willing to make donations. Our strategy was to draw attention to the NGO by hijacking the website that has seen record numbers of visitors this winter: Amazon.

All the reviews were published from December 2020 to January 2021, intercepting people without being noticed by Amazon.

- 10 migrants reviewed more than 100 products directly on Amazon

- Growth hacking techniques made their reviews appear first on all commented articles.

- All reviews were gathered in our wishlist.

- And we sent a PR kit to bring attention to the cause

- Production cost : 0 €

- Media budget : 0 €

- In 72 hours, the association received more in-kind donations than during the whole previous year.

- Jan. 2021 vs Jan 2020 in-kind donations: +2340 %

- the campaign got national and international coverage highlighting the living conditions in the refugee camp (over 82 million impressions)