THE IDEA:

A 24/7 SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATION

To raise awareness we wanted to transport the hospitals' reality to somewhere it can't be ignored. So we placed an empty hospital chair behind the window of an down-town gallery and invited Romania to a solidarity gesture, while live-streaming everything: occupy the chair 24/7 until the money is raised.

To encourage people to become part of this campaign by donating and subscribing to sit on the chair, we invited influencers to donate their time and help spread the message. Together with actors, singers, bloggers and other public figures in Romania, we created an online video about these parents' struggle and how they became welded to the chair that nobody wants to sit on.

Paid media budget: 0

The total budget of the campaign was zero.

Over 60 celebrities joined the campaigned for free, generating huge earned media.

Spaces we used, productions, everything was a donation for the cause from different sources.

We used an art gallery to symbolically recreate a room from a Romanian oncology hospital. The central element was a chair. Placed right next to an empty hospital bed, the chair became an icon of the struggle of a poor family that needs treatment for their child but has no place to stay.

An invitation to take a seat in our gallery was launched in an online movie starring celebrities that joined the campaign for free.

Hundreds of people sat 24/7 on the gallery chair (3rd-26th of November). They took the commitment to keep the chair occupied until money for shelter would be raised. People could get scheduled on the NGO’s website, where a live stream from the gallery was permanently available.

The gallery became a living outdoor showcasing a hurtful reality through its windows, facing one of the most crowded boulevards in Bucharest.

IMPACT:

The campaign changed the SMS donation campaigns benchmark in Romania by raising the biggest amount of money in a record period of time. The parents shelter will soon open and others are to be built.

Target:

- 200.000 euros

Raised:

- 500.000 euros in 3 weeks

- 1.000.000 euros by now and counting

RESPONSE:

2.000 people registered to sit on the chair

Until the money were raised, 636 people sat on the chair 24/7 for 23 days

240.000 reactions in social media

2.000.000 video views

200 different news on TV, online and radio, 10% TV prime time news with a minimum length of 3 minutes and a 15 minutes TV story, within the social show with the highest audience in Romania.

BEHAVIOUR CHANGE:

Engaging people not only to donate (1 in 10.000 SMS is a donation in Romania) but to give their own time and be the campaign.

Take a Seat was the campaign that not only changed the SMS fundraising benchmark in Romania but redefined the meaning of togetherness through a live demonstration.

To overcome people's low response towards donation campaigns, we decided to create the campaign together with the audience. After inviting people to occupy a chair for 24/7 as a solidarity gesture for the parents of cancer sick children, more than 2.000 people responded to our call. Other hundreds of thousands donated half a million euros in less than a month via SMS, in a country where 1 in 10.000 SMS represents a donation.

To raise the 200.000 Euros needed, the campaign's main fundraising tool was the SMS donation. It was a high-stakes attempt considering that only 1 in 10.000 SMS represents a donation in Romania. Given the ambitious target, people's low engagement towards donations and a zero communication budget, we had to go for a totally different approach:

FROM COMPASSION TO EMPOWERMENT

Most of the times, donation campaigns aim for people's compassion. But we wanted to make people feel empowered, turning the SMS into a tool they could use to build the alternative system that Romania needed.

We also gave people access to the campaign itself, engaging them in the making. Aside from donating, sitting on that chair in public display meant a powerful personal statement.

Core target: reactive civil society, people who militate for what they believe in, 25-45 y.o, urban.

In Romania, over 80% of children diagnosed with cancer come from families with limited financial resources who cannot afford the costs of transportation and accommodation. This is the main cause for children being diagnosed late, treatments being postponed or interrupted. Therefore, in Romania, only 50% of those children survive, compared to 80% in Western Europe.

MagiCamp is an NGO whose mission is to build houses near the biggest oncology centres in Romania so that parents of children suffering from cancer wouldn't have to live anymore on hospital chairs, next to their sick children.

MagiCamp asked us to create a campaign that would raise 200.000 Euros for a house near the biggest oncology hospital that would shelter parents and children who come for treatment.

The campaign budget: 0.

Challenge: a very low rate in SMS donations (1 in 10.000 SMS is a donation in Romania).