Title	THE MOST POWERFUL ARM EVER INVENTED
Client	SAVE OUR SONS & DUCHENNE FOUNDATION
Product / Service	DUCHENNE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY CHARITY
Category	A06. Best Use of Other Digital Platforms in a Direct Campaign
Entrant	HAVAS WORLDWIDE AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company	HAVAS WORLDWIDE AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Advertising Agency	HAVAS WORLDWIDE AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name	Company	Position
Jennifer Mcdermott	Red Agency	Account Manager
Rachel White	Red Agency	Associate Director
	Red Agency	Pr Agency
Ophenia Liang (Reseo)	Reactive	Search Account Director
Luke Andersen	Reactive	Front End Developer
Sudeep Shakya	Reactive	Senior Developer
Gabriel Tamborini	Reactive	Art Director
Hiedi Clague	Reactive	Senior Project Manager
Tim Buesing	Reactive	Creative Director
	Reactive	Digital Agency
Alyssa Mcclelland	Finch	Director
Rob Galluzzo	Finch	Executive Producer
Sophie Thiellon	Finch	Producer
Emad Tahtouh	Finch	Director Of Applied Technology And Innovation
	Finch	Production Company
Marissa Davies	Havas Worlwide Australia	Account Director
Simon Fowler	Havas Worldwide Australia	Copywriter
Nicole Hetherington	Havas Worldwide Australia	Art Director
Steve Coll	Havas Worldwide Australia	Executive Creative Director

The Brief

Save Our Sons desperately needed $1.75m to fund urgent clinical trials that could stop Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) – a rare and fatal condition that deteriorates the muscles in thousands of Australian children. Our goal was to raise money for the trials. But, as a rare disease, DMD has virtually no awareness within Australia. So, with no money for media, we had to rely on the direct involvement of Australians to make our campaign work. Our strategy was to create a newsworthy innovation and invite Australians to take part in something they’d never done before.

Creative Execution

Children with DMD lose the strength in all of their muscles. Some of the first affected are in their arms – taking away their ability to write. This was our inspiration for The Most Powerful Arm – invented for people to sign on behalf of those who couldn’t. To make the arm more powerful we gave it a font based on the handwriting of Jacob Lancaster, a 19 year old from Sydney with DMD. Jacob lost the ability to write when he was 12, so we sampled the last thing he ever wrote – a Mother’s Day card.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

We created ‘The Most Powerful Arm Ever Invented’ - the world’s first petition signing robot. Then we invited Aussies to use it to sign their name on an online petition that would persuade the Australian Government to fund these trials. By asking people to login via Facebook to sign, we were able to automatically share a photo of the robot signing their name to their facebook wall, creating a massive viral effect and huge media coverage. Our aim was to get enough support from the Australian public to persuade the Government to fund these urgent clinical trials.

Results

With no media budget, The Most Powerful Arm turned an unknown charity into national news. Our mix of earned media, viral, in-programme placement and ambient achieved coverage in 300 technology/creative blogs, 5 prime-time national television shows, and every national newspaper – an astonishing $7.9m of earned media. Our viral campaign generated 6.5 million Facebook impressions and 32,000 signatures, becoming the most successful Australian health-related petition ever. It’s the first Facebook petition to be tabled by the Senate. And most amazingly of all, a pharmaceutical company who saw the campaign actually offered to fund the trials themselves.