‘Refugee Luxuries’ is an idea that transformed a regular auction into a channel to raise awareness for refugees’ daily struggles. Everyday items that are true luxuries for refugees were carefully selected and packaged in bespoke boxes with a customised, luxury logo, infusing a sense of exclusivity and expense. At Refugees International Japan’s 40th anniversary gala, the ‘Refugee Luxuries’ were placed on auction among actual luxury pieces. The unexpected activation, within this unique environment, immediately engaged the audience, producing results beyond RIJ’s expectations.

Japan is a country with relatively low awareness of the refugee plight. The refugee crisis is seen as a distant problem and rarely makes the news. Last year only 8 people were granted asylum in Japan out of 6,000 applications.

To fund its projects worldwide, Refugees International Japan (RIJ), amongst its many other activities, holds an annual gala attended by some of Tokyo’s elite. This year marked the 40th anniversary of the RIJ event and our briefing was to create an activation that would bring home the issue that 2.6 million refugees are currently living in camps worldwide without regular access to life’s daily necessities. Additionally, we aimed to create an experience that would raise further funds for RIJ’s activities around the world.

To highlight how the everyday items we take for granted are actually luxuries for 2.6 million refugees living in camps worldwide, we created a luxury brand—Refugee Luxuries. We placed a toothbrush, a bar of soap, a bottle of water and a sanitary pad in bespoke packaging with a brand image inspired by the world’s most iconic high-end brands. At Refugees International Japan’s annual gala, the ‘Refugee Luxuries’ were placed on auction among actual luxury pieces needing to exude the same level of quality as those items to truly convey the campaign message. The event was attended by 200 of Tokyo’s most affluent residents already aware of the basic refugee plight.

The target audience were those people already in attendance and, as such, already knew of the main troubles that refugees face. However, the campaign aimed to bring to light some of the more underlying problems for refugees that trigger or lead to their bigger struggles. With the audience already having a solid perception of RIJ as a brand the ‘Refugee Luxuries’ were crafted with a rebranded logo, to ensure the tone played to the message and expressed luxury.

‘Refugee Luxuries’ was launched during RIJ’s annually gala on the 8th of March, 2019, at the Hilton Hotel, Shinjuku. The event was attended by wealthy people from both the international and Japanese communities of Tokyo.

‘Refugees Luxuries’ were presented at the evenings main auction with a reserve price of ¥10,000 each, a price that further highlighted the exclusivity of these one-of-a-kind items, and the issue at hand.

'Refugee Luxuries' raised 10,000 times the real market value of the items auctioned, and enabled Refugees International Japan to deliver thousands of these everyday necessities directly to refugees with the monies received. Executive Director Jane Best called the effort the single most successful auction RIJ has ever executed.