The Campaign

We wanted people to "see" firsthand what it was like to try and walk the streets of Taiwan without the gift of sight. In the simplest terms possible, we took away their main method of navigation and challenged them to do what thousands of others need to do on a daily basis. It was a very visceral but very straightforward way to illustrate the problem. In addition, we followed up by providing a solution to the issue, so instead of people feeling frustrated or alarmed they had a practical way to help and contribute.

Creative Execution

We invited passersby to experience walking "blind" - i.e. by wearing eye masks during peak rush hour traffic. We then raised public awareness via a video and microsite which documented the experience, talked about the issue and presented a simple solution, the Guide Dog Foster Program. We also made it easy for people to participate and contribute.

Results

Several news networks and outlets covered the story, along with regular users via social media and blogs. More importantly, people contributed to the campaign and more than NTD 1 million was raised through donations. In addition, volunteer families for the Guide Dog Foster Program increased by 60%.

The work in question concerns a serious and problematic social issue that has seen very little attention and concern in the past. It's also something that wouldn't require a great deal of effort or financing to fix. Overall, we were able to create something that addressed the problem and presented an actual and viable solution.

60,000 blind people with only 41 guide dogs simply doesn't add up. We found that people were unaware of this vast discrepancy, and so we knew it was simply an awareness issue. However, we also found that many people in Taiwan (and elsewhere), even after learning about an issue, do not take further action. So we knew we needed to do something a little bit extreme to really get their attention.