"Mães da Sé", a 30 year old institution that already found more than 6000 missing people, was looking for new ways to raise awareness and support for their collective struggle. Old strategies, such as TV, radio, milk cartons and even social media trends were not being as effective. At the same time, the institution has seen a decline in donations and volunteers after the Pandemic started.

Our mission was to find a new way to connect the institution with an ever evolving world. As part of our main objectives were:

• Raising awareness on the Mães da Sé cause.

• Raising donations for the institution.

• Stimulating participation from the public, fostering information around current missing people.

Our idea was to use the tools the game already offers to transform missing people portraits into playable characters in the Starfield universe.

Without the need for MODs ou Dev costs, we modeled 7 different characters based on real missing people from the "Mães da Sé" archives. After that, we called the biggest game streamers on Twitch to play as those characters and introduce the cause to their passionate community.

During hours of gameplay, the gaming audience spent quality time learning about Mães da Sé, but also discussing the traits of these missing people while they played with the characters.

Character customization is usual to a great number of games, but this was the first time it was used to make a big impact in people's lives.

Games are among the biggest forms of entertainment nowadays. The number of players and people watching gaming influencers is on the rise. Platforms such as Twitch have been creating a new and engaged community around this passion.

And when Starfield, one of 2023's biggest games, launched, we saw an opportunity to connect "Mães da Sé" with this powerful audience.

Due to the game's advanced character customization tools, players were creating their in-game avatars looking real-like versions of celebrities and other characters:

Walter white

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAexF0VuJbk&pp=ygUdaG93IHRvIHdhbHRlciB3aGl0ZSBzdGFyZmllbGQ%3D

Mike ermantrwut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm0DwE_4KJk

Thomas Shelby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cxMjMXuSaI

Jhonny Depp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGsCgQM3TBM

Keanu Reeves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RioClVtuq-g

Obama/Dafoe/Scarface

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCsD5ufRp3E

These videos were getting attention from social media and traditional media. So we decided to turn this HYPE around the game into HOPE.

- We connected with the institution to understand which would be the portraits transformed into playable characters. We took into consideration family approvals.

- Our team was able to model the characters using the tools the game already offered. This was later used by streamers as starting points to build those characters with their community.

- 7 characters were modeled and we had streamers such as Rakin, MenyeB and SMZinho (2 million followers combined) play as those characters for hours.

- We also made easy guidelines that were shared with the community, so anyone could play as those characters.

- During each livestream, we offered links for financial donations and for the public to share any information they had on those people.

- On social media, we reinforced the message, bringing new gamified versions of missing people portraits.

- We are now testing to do the same on other games.

Insights to the creation:

Our first ambition was to create an easy to replicate campaign. We believe this idea has the power to start a movement, in which streamers spontaneously choose to customize their characters as missing people. As the character customization tools in games continue to evolve, this reality starts to become more real.

So, our biggest challenge was to create easy guidelines for the public. This was not easy, as it took us some time to figure the best practice. Yet, what looked like a struggle for us, was actually content for our volunteer influencers. Their community really enjoyed the customization part of the livestream, engaging in discussions around our character's eyes, nose, cheeks, face format, etc.

This was the first time a missing person campaign focused on physical traits, instead of just a picture.

• The most incredible thing happened a few days after the first livestream: One of the missing persons WAS FOUND and reunited with their families. Their family, though, asked for discretion due to the person's special condition. (We only used the pictures of Jean that were pre-approved)

•5 million minutes watched in total from our influencers livestreams.

• 284% increase in donations during the campaign.

• Peak donation since the pandemic started.

• $11 million in Earned Media, considering specialized (Tech) and national media. Including a 4-minute piece on Prime Time of Brazil's mais national channel.

Prime Time piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-HQQ88yQ_A