Results and Effectiveness

Through this unique experience, the public could understand blind children’s intellectual poverty, while solving the problem by contributing to Braille book publishing. For 50 days from 7th, December, 2012, 372,961 people visited the website, 5,300 books were Braille-translated, and 39,096,964 points, nearly $35,000 were donated. Campaign was introduced in over 50 newspapers, 5,624 blogs, and countless social-network-services. On 31st, March, 2013, total of 5,300 books including Gulliver’s Travel, The Little Prince, and Pinocchio were Braille-published for the first time in Korea and delivered to 100 blind children. Today, Point Publishers is still publishing for those waiting for their own storybooks.

Creative Execution

The Point Publishers is an exceptional campaign for enhancing public awareness with an actual result. When a participant chooses a book, and selects the sentence he/she wants to Braille-translate for blind children, the card points are automatically donated, as much number as Braille points(dots) needed to translate the chosen sentence. Then this personally-translated sentence is posted on his/her Facebook, attracting more participation in the campaign. Then, every different kind of mediums such as, viral film on Youtube, campaign Facebook, banners, DMs, and Print ads on magazines were used to keep encouraging public , while mobile, installation, and website were open channel for easy donation. When all sentences in one book are translated, one real Braille-book is actually published and delivered to the blind children. This process is repeated until hundreds of children are supplied with hundreds of essential books.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Every year in Korea, only 0.2% of books are published into Braille due to expensive production cost. Insufficiency of books led to the illiteracy rate of blind children, up to 85%, Korea Braille Library wanted to find the sustainable solution to distribute Braille-books for children. In order to provide blind children with essential Braille books until they are grown-ups, we needed the sustainable way to afford inherently tremendous cost. We paid specific attention to yearly unused, disappearing, billions of reward points of a credit card company and established the social funded Braille books publisher where an individual’s 1 card point becomes 1 point of the Braille; the Point Publishers. Point Publishers is the world-first Braille books publishing system, and also the donation platform, which became one and only sustainable Braille books publisher in Korea, creating a socially responsible and proactive program for blind children.