The Brief

ORBIS are an international charity on a mission to eradicate curable blindness around the world. To support ORBIS’ mission around the world, donations are exceptionally vital. In anticipation of World Sight Day on October 10th, we launched a campaign in Hong Kong to raise much needed funds for ORBIS, targeting the entire Hong Kong donating public. Unlike previous years, without real news or changes in the charity’s operations this year, we knew we had to create the hook and raise funds in a way that would drive engagement and interest among the audiences.

Creative Execution

We turned the colour BLACK into a tangible embodiment of the issue that ORBIS are fighting everyday – curable blindness. Taking a piece of black away reprsents taking darkness away for those do are living life in darkness. It is also to keep them away from the daily dangers they could have run into. It is very ownable to ORBIS, as the charity aims to eradicate curable blindness around the world, they are to provide sight-saving treatments to those living life in darkness. Through an engaging campaign, both donor and bidder can also contribute to the sight-saving mission.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Without any new and exciting news for the charity this year, we knew that we have to look for a more engaging and interesting approach to attract repeat donations and new donors. We launched a microsite to educate users and direct them to our facebook auction platform, where we asked the public to donate a piece of black item they no longer want. Any interested party can bid on the donated items. Through every transaction, a piece of darkness is taken away. In additional to the bidding, the public can also donate through purchasing a “Darkness to go’ badge.

Results

The campaign quickly caught the public’s imagination. Journalists and bloggers embraced the idea, making it the feature of numerous write-ups online and offline, generating US$155K worth of media from a US$32K media investment. From the 23,114 transactions from both the auction and badges, a total US$534K donations was raised, despite the slow sector growth in donation this year (2.65%). we’ve also achieved a 9.76% growth on average donations per donor compared to last year, increased donations 3.7 times faster than the overall category. The total donations were able to support over 14,000 sight-saving treatments world-wide.