Describe any restrictions or regulations regarding Healthcare/RX/Pharma communications in your country/region including:

Taipei Blood Center is a non-government as well as non-profit organization, they don’t have authority to spread out blood shortage messages widely to public. Furthermore, due to limited funding (mainly from other organization or private individual) and lack of resource, they barely have media budget to disseminate blood shortage messages.

Describe the target audience and why your work is relevant to them.

Taipei Blood Center has 15 fixed donating spots, passively waiting for enthusiasts to donate blood. Without media budget, ‘Blood Beacon’ connects the real time data to call for our target audiences to donate at the right time and place, shortening blood shortage’s time.

Background

In Taiwan, 7.5% of the population donate blood. That’s the highest rate in the world. But shortages in specific blood types still occur often. This means although people are willing to donate blood, yet donors do not donate at the right area and time or the donated blood are not types that urgently needed. There’s no easy way for people to find out about blood shortages in daily lives, so even though Taiwan is filled of willing donors, it’s difficult to reach them with specific blood type when they’re needed most. How can we immediately alert and mobilise people to donate in daily lives and call for people with specific blood types to donate at the most needed time and area in order to shorten the blood shortages time of certain types?

Describe the creative idea

Taiwan’s smartphone penetration rate is ranked top 2 in the world. People often use navigational apps in their daily lives. We discovered that the ‘location icon’ we all use daily to search locations looks just like a blood drop when flipped upside down. And with that… the ‘Blood Beacon’ was born. We incorporated the ‘Blood Beacon’ into a popular navigational app. When users look for locations on mobile devices, the ‘location icon’ connects them with real-time blood inventory data. If there’s a shortage in a specific blood type, the ‘location icon’ flips upside down, alerts the user to the blood type in demand, and navigates them to the nearest blood donation center. If there’s no shortage, the ‘location icon’ stays the same.

Describe the strategy

We understand that people are reluctant to download extra apps, With the real-time inventory stats, we incorporated the Blood Beacon into a popular navigational app that people already own and use. Existing users of this application could receive detailed information including blood type in shortage and blood donation location by using mobile phone, It is Taiwanese’ high willingness in blood donation that we could call for more people with matching blood type to donate efficiently. We first cooperated with the ‘Parking Lot App’, an application with over 2 million users. When 2 million users look for parking spaces, the ‘location icon’ connects them with real-time blood inventory data. When blood shortage strikes, the ‘location icon’ flips upside down to a Blood Beacon.

Describe the execution

From December 26th, 2018, this idea has since been permanently built into the ‘Parking Lot App’ allowing a long-term and close cooperation. This idea is a certain and sustainable way in allowing blood donation center to spread blood shortage messages in daily lives without any media buy. Therefore, when executing the idea, except for the A4 poster that calls for people to download the application in every blood donation location, there is no other execution fee. This is just the beginning. We will be cooperating with 4 additional food and car service related navigational application in October of 2019, making this idea even more widely used.

List the results

◆Since the Blood Beacon went live, we reduced the average blood shortage time from 35 hours to just 7. Blood donations have become faster and more efficient than ever. ◆In Taiwan, within a short two-month time (January and February of 2019), the number of first-time donors has exceeded 11,900 because of the alert via the app. ◆22 Taiwanese news agencies picked up the idea. Every parking spot is a starting point to assist these people — ET today News Making blood donation more effective — Malaysian News The upside down location icon, the starting point for the helping — Yahoo News ◆And this year, 4 other navigational apps will also adopt the Blood Beacon. ◆This simple, creative idea gives the public real-time blood donation data, exactly where and when they’re needed.