We needed an idea that could be really disruptive, but at the same time generate a sense of national altruism.

So we made the letters of the blood groups—A, O and B—disappear from society to visualise the fall in blood donation and create a powerful call to action.

Our ambition was to create a simple inclusive movement where anyone, from individuals to global brands, could remove the letters from physical and commercial spaces, publications, logos and social media profiles, allowing the message to be easily understood, imitated and shared.

By piggybacking existing assets, we would gain maximum impact with minimum cost for the client, and effort from participants.

Teaser phase (03/06/2015 - 04/06/2015)

A number of partner brands lost their type in the physical world. Images of the disruption were captured and used as collateral for media coverage. They were also shared via the brands’ social media channels alongside cryptic tweets from influencers such as Gemma Styles.

Reveal phase (05/06/2015 – 07/06/2015)

NHS Blood and Transplant revealed #MissingType as a call to action, while a media relations blitz ensured coverage appeared across every major print, broadcast and online source.

Within hours #MissingType went viral and prompted a 1000% increase in web traffic over the weekend as people went online to register to donate.

National Blood Week (08/06/2015 – 14/06/2015)

Momentum build, and coverage spread to National TV and Radio. As the movement grew, brands, institutions, celebrities and the public rallied to support the cause, removing letters from social media and creating bespoke content to share with their followers.

Proving to be a strong visceral reminder of how much society needs those simple letters, #Missing Type became a catalyst for tens of thousands of people not just dropping their type, but registering to donate blood in record numbers:

Over 30,000 donor registrations in the first 10 days.

It is estimated that this will save or improve over 100,000 lives.

A total reach of over 2 billion

Organic participation from over 1000 brands

Visits to the give blood website increased by 1000% by day 2

The most successful National Blood Week Campaign on record

18,114 17-24 year old donors registered during the campaign

Over 600 pieces of earned news coverage

14 items on National Television

29 items on National Radio

Missing Type was a response driven campaign that used a simple, visual and easily adaptable creative idea to create a powerful social media movement, which put blood donation firmly back on the public agenda.

The visual call to action was easy and free to execute across both digital and physical spaces, which meant that the message travelled quickly from advocate to advocate. While the powerful reach and influence of brands—who supported the cause entirely altruistically—raised the status of the issue to one of national importance, creating a movement which directly influenced public behaviour, creating record numbers of donor registrations.

With limited budget, we decided to use staged partner content to trigger an organic, domino-effect across social media.

Many viral campaigns fail to ignite because the issue and call to action are not properly established in the target audience’s mind-set. Hard-hitting news coverage, combined with social media content from well-known brands would be critical to successfully building momentum.

We therefore approached high-profile brands and organisations—Odeon, O2 and even Downing Street—to help seed the idea of Missing Type with a series of staged activities that would both stir public intrigue and provide news and social content for our PR team to sell into the National press.

The simplicity of the creative idea was reflected in the success of the activation: minimal effort was required to create the desired disruption, message delivery and action, making it easy for thousands of individuals and brands to join the movement.

National Blood Week is a key date in NHS Blood and Transplant’s calendar.

In 2015 there was an urgent need to recruit a new generation of donors, as registrations had plummeted a staggering 40% in the past decade.

A disruptive campaign was required to spark conversation and initiate behaviour change on a national level – creating registrations, not just raising awareness. Blood donation needed to be put back on the public agenda.

While all registrations are valuable to the NHS, 17-24 year olds were the primary recruitment target, with national press coverage and social media critical to driving online donor registration.

The previous National Blood Week generated over 10,000 new donors – this was the benchmark for success.