The Campaign

To raise awareness of the urgent need for more donors, we spoke to people while they were experiencing a slightly frustrating wait of their own. We recorded real patients who were waiting for organ donations and gave their messages to Hong Kong’s largest call waiting IT service provider. So while you’re waiting for your call to be answered, you hear a message from people who have been waiting years for something far more important.

Creative Execution

While you're waiting in the queue for your call to be answered you hear a message from real people who have been waiting years for a transplant. Here's a sample message: 1. Hello. My name's Tang and I'm waiting too. In fact, I've been waiting for 5 years. Not for someone to answer my call, but for a lung transplant. There are thousands of others in the same situation. If you'd like to find out how you can help, press #. (When the caller pressed # they were sent an SMS with details about the need for donors and a link to the donor registration website.)

So far, three companies are already using the messages. And Active IT Solutions, the call waiting service provider, is now offering the messages to all new and renewing clients.

We took a little-used audio medium that was particularly appropriate to the idea. So instead of hearing soothing/irritating music while you're in the queue for your call to be answered, you heard a message from someone who's been waiting years for an organ transplant.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The strategy was to target people with a highly relevant message at a time when we had their full attention. So once we had the idea, we approached ACTIVE, Hong Kong's largest IT call waiting service provider and they agreed to support campaign free of charge and offer it to all new and renewing customers.