Behaviour change agency, 23red, working alongside NHS Blood and Transplant, has recruited a mix of budding young creatives to raise awareness of the upcoming organ donation law change amongst young people across England.
The innovative move saw a team of five, recruited with the help of mentoring group Joined Up Thinking working alongside 23red’s creatives to develop new content to promote the upcoming law change for organ donation, which will see England move from an ‘opt in’ to an ‘opt out’ system.
Once the law change comes into effect in England later this spring, those over the age of 18 will be considered to have agreed to become an organ donor when they die, unless they have recorded a decision not to donate or are in one of the excluded groups.
The creative project forms the next phase of the ‘Pass It On’ campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the law change across the population. A recent survey has shown that only 37% of 16 to 20-year-olds were aware of the upcoming change in the law, so 23red led on the development of a strategy to engage young people.
The five young creatives –- aged between sixteen and twenty-one – joined the agency for a paid Hothouse Week where they were immersed into agency life and given the live brief of the ‘Pass It On’ campaign.
Assets developed by the young creatives
Pass it on heart video
Different versions of a heart (emoji, felt, embroidered, illustrated, graphic) are passed in and out of screen between different young people. The heart evolves from an abstract emoji to become a detailed, anatomical beating heart. The different hearts represent the core idea: everyone has the potential to be an organ donor, they each have their own unique gift to give. It also gives us the opportunity to showcase the range of creative talents within the team. The heart was chosen as one of the most recognisable organs, as well as a symbol of love and compassion.
Pass it on heart social post
A static representation of the pass it on heart video, showing young people passing a heart across different social posts to represent everyone having a gift to give. The execution also signifies the community of young people sharing the change in law message across social platforms.
Supporting graphics for social and partner channels
The creatives developed additional executions and graphics based on the core idea:
- A social post with multiple versions of ‘pass it on’. This is based on a popular style of social post amongst the audience to create intrigue and drive click-throughs. The blue and red border represents oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood in the different atriums within the heart.
- Social posts/ posters with the copy ‘9 lives, 2 minutes, 1 decision’ – both illustrations and fabric versions - demonstrating the potential to save multiple people and the ease with which you can register to be an organ donor (‘too much effort’ was cited as a key barrier amongst this audience). The ‘1 decision’ prompts action and also empowers the young person to make a choice about whether they would like to be an organ donor – a key theme of the Pass It On campaign.
The content is innovative, relevant and ultimately created for young people, by young people. The assets developed will go live on February 14th on Instagram and Snapchat as part of the ‘Pass It On’ campaign. They will also be featured on NHS Blood and Transplant’s own Instagram account and shared with influencers and partner organisations.
Employing the end audience as the creators allowed the content creation to be driven by authentic new insight in the right tone of voice and distributed to reflect the real ways young people consume media.
Tristan Cavanagh, Creative Director, said: “Creatives are, admittedly, utter control freaks. But sometimes you must acknowledge that a bunch of similar people sitting in an agency or a marketing department aren’t necessarily going to come up with truly relevant ideas. Giving over creative control to a set of very talented young people was initially daunting but proved to be an absolute joy with fantastic results thanks to a collaborative and brave client and the young people’s amazing enthusiasm, insight and skills.”
Andrea Ttofa, Head of Organ Donation Marketing, at NHS Blood and Transplant said: “We want as many people as possible across England to know that the law around organ donation is changing and understand what this means for them. We want people to have access to the facts, know that they still have a choice, and the importance of sharing their decision with family.
“From our research and public surveys, we know that young people are less likely to be aware of the law change and less likely to read or engage with traditional media. We knew that we had to be creative and think differently in order to reach people from this age group, and what better way could there be to do this, than by asking young people to design and create the content themselves.
“We were so impressed with how quickly the young creatives got on board and responded to the brief, the enthusiasm and commitment they showed throughout the process, and the quality of work they produced. We hope they will be equally proud that this valuable piece of work will help increase awareness and understanding, and hopefully help us save more lives.”
NHS Blood and Transplant, supported by 23Red, are committed to working with a broad range of partners and organisations in order to raise awareness of organ donation and the law change. Any organisations interested in finding out more, are encouraged to contact [email protected]