Why is this work relevant for PR?

HDFC Bank’s 2018 Blood Donation drive was a success with 300,000 donors. The aim in 2019, was to get more than 300,000 donors by focusing on likely conversion targets who could be motivated to donate blood. Introducing #BYOB — Blood for your own body We created a health fad and spoke directly to fitness fanatics, and introduced the health benefits of donating blood by conducting blood donation drives at gyms, swimming pools, and yoga centers. The campaign became a part of fitness conversations and trended at #1 on Twitter. Most importantly it resulted in us exceeding our target by 50%.

Background

HDFC Bank’s 2018 Blood Donation drive was a runaway success with 300,000 donors supported by an award-winning campaign #StopMithani. We wanted 2019 to be even bigger. The goal was to get 300,000 donors - more than the turnout in the 2018 edition. But in a country where low donor turnouts are the norm, this was going to be a tall ask. Donor turnouts are usually low in India, which meant we needed to innovate to reach our target. Most blood donation drives try to encourage people to do some social good. Unfortunately, Indians don’t really care about social-good as they live stressful lives and most of them are too busy fighting their own battles to actively do something for social good. So we needed to give more than 300,000 people a strong, personal reason to step out and donate blood.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We chose to focus on the tangible, physical benefits of blood donation and not just the emotional ones. Our ambitious target meant we needed a stronger push than just the emotional benefits of having donated for intangible social good. And we took this messaging to those who would care about their health the most — India’s fitness fanatics. India’s growing tribe of fitness fanatics are urban metro dwelling youth who religiously follow diet fads, workout routines Introducing #BYOB — Blood for your own body We spoke directly to fitness fanatics in India and introduced the health benefits of donating blood by sharply targeting fitness fanatics with short videos filmed on their training grounds — gyms, swimming pools, and yoga centers.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

Everyone agrees blood donation is good for society at large, but it does not translate into a personal motivation big enough to trigger action Our insight: A personal goal is a better motivator than a social cause We needed to translate the cause into a tangible personal goal for people While the norm is to explore the emotional do-gooder benefits of blood donation, we chose to focus on its physical benefits instead. By choosing to target physical benefits, we made the cause more personal and tangible. Donating blood is proven to improve cardiovascular, liver, and even mental health. Studies also link it with a lowered risk of cancer So we chose to take these benefits to India’s growing tribe of fitness fanatics — the urban youth of India who is leading the adoption of diet fads and fitness routines Introducing #BYOB — Blood for Your Own Body

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

To reach out to the 90MN+ health-conscious individuals in the country we, Firstly, communicated this lesser-known fact about blood donation by creating a new health fad and then promoted it through a video across all social media platforms. Secondly, to push this idea further we took over all the places where health freaks are found like gyms, fitness clubs, swimming pools, and yoga centers on our annual blood donation day and converted them into blood donation camps. This activity took place for a whole day on 6th December 2019 throughout the country, across 4900+ camps, primarily in the metropolitan cities where there is an abundance of health freaks.

List the results (30% of vote)

This activity took the country by surprise and ended up being really successful for us. The campaign became a part of fitness conversations and trended at #1 on Twitter India This resulted in us exceeding our target by 50% over last year! 450,000 donors showed up at the drive to donate blood as a result of #BYOB The blood that was donated through this campaign was enough to save the lives of 14,50,000 Indians! Most importantly it turned blood donation into a habit amongst the Indian youth.

Please tell us about the social behaviour that inspired the work

Indian metro dwelling youth is a growing tribe of fitness fanatics who religiously follow diet fads, workout routines. To speak to them we chose to target the physical benefits of blood donation as that made the cause more personal and tangible. Introducing #BYOB — Blood for Your Own Body We introduced blood donation this year as a brand new health fad and spoke directly to fitness fanatics in India, the ones who would care about their health the most — and introduced the health benefits of donating blood by sharply targeting them at the places they are found the most — gyms, swimming pools, and yoga centers.