Why is this work relevant for PR?

While organ donations and their subsequent transplants are a popular process in western countries, that's not the case in China. The campaign was launched during a national basketball match, and raised the awareness of voluntary organ donation to the public through the story of a special basketball team with only one boy. Hundreds of media agencies covered it without payment, and led to a significant increase in organ donor registration.

Background

While organ donations and their subsequent transplants are a popular process in western countries, that's not the case in China. China banned transplant of organs from executed prisoners in 2015, and voluntary donation have been the only source. However, many are against the procedure due to cultural beliefs. In China many conservative elderly people still insist on the Chinese tradition of burying the dead intact. Many people have hardly even heard of organ donation. Every year about 300,000 Chinese are on waiting lists to receive organ transplants, but only just over 16,000 receive transplants each year. The ratio of demand-to-supply is 30 to one. We aim to boost voluntary donations and promote awareness of the cause.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We found five organ recipients of Ye Sha. They formed a team named after him and played a match against professional players as their tribute to the donor and the cause that has saved thousands of lives. The organs they received are pictured on their jerseys and the number made up the date 4/27/2017, the day the donor died. It was the day they got a new chance at life.

Describe the strategy (30% of vote)

We put the story on China's biggest social platform WeChat with a challenge letter to China Basketball Association (CBA) and Yao Ming, Chairman of CBA. Millions of users were moved and reposted and registered as voluntary donors. Their signatures made CBA agree to a friendly match. The special team hope to raise awareness of organ donation for audiences in the stadium and those who were watching the game live on TV and online.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

On International Basketball Day, that is December 21, 2018, Ye Sha's team sent out a challenge letter to professional basketball teams on WeChat social network. With 70,000 signatures behind its back, the message was put on the table of CBA. In the end, they agreed to a friendly match during the Women's Chinese Basketball Association (WCBA) All-Star Game, which would be broadcast live on TV and online. The team had two days of training before the five-minute game. On January 27,2019, during the game, the team had just three shots, with the help of their competitors from the WCBA. But they received warm applause from the audience, including basketball star Yao Ming, in a stadium in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

List the results (30% of vote) – must include at least two of the following tiers:

There were 8.26 million clicks and shares on WeChat network in 3 days, and 1.36 million trending hashtags in 3 months. Over 70,000 people put their signatures down for the challenge letter to Yao Ming, Chairman of CBA. 408 media agencies covered the campaign with 1335 reports in 3 months. There was a 4-minute feature report by CCTV Network News with China's highest audience rating of 8.33%. In response, more than 150,000 people registered as voluntary donors, which was a 4 times increase compared with 2017. Theoretically, each donor can give an average of 3.5 organs, which means about 525,000 people could benefit.