Brand values:

Every child is worth the same, and Save the children are working to help children all over the world in any means possible - everything from on the ground, in field and politically. But to do this job they are dependent on donors. In that way every person who donates money to Save the children are a part of saving children's lives.

Breif/Objectives:

The winter season is a matter of life or death for homeless children around the world. As a yearly Christmas campaign Save the Children Norway sets out to warm as many children as possible. Unfortunately, after six years, they saw a decreasing interest in the campaign.

The fact that children around the world still are freezing to death in 2020, is really something of the past. So we decided to make an interactive TVC and online film about The Little Match Girl*, set in 2020, where your donation changed the ending of the story. Most Scandinavians know the ending of this tale, where she is found frozen to death in the streets on Christmas moring.

When a donation was given you got to see a new ending to the story - depending on how you chose to warm the girl. Figuratively seeing what the money went to.

About The Little Match Girl:

*The Little Match Girl is a Christmas story written in 1845 by H.C Andersen. It's about a girl that tries to keep herself warm by lighting up matches that she was suppose to sell. In the end she is found dead, frozen to death.

The most efficient way to raise funds is to create a powerful and strong emotional response. This has caused a lot of NGO’s to show starving children and gruesome images, with the noble purpose to raise money. Even if this is a great way to raise funds, it comes with a bitter aftertaste. It gives bad conscience to the viewer and is reducing the children to helpless symbols of tragedies.

Save the Children wanted to change this, we wanted to create fundraising communication with the same emotional punch, but with dignity.

Our strategy was to show the struggle, the agency and the weakness of lonely children without pitying them. We wanted to show a new kind of fundraising and pair that up with a clear, concrete and innovative call to action.

We made one main film about the Little Match Girl, set in 2020. The film was 90 seconds long and it was heavily aired on TV the five weeks up to Christmas. Even though we had changed the storyline to tell he story in a way that felt plausible today, it was important to make people recognize the story as The Little Match Girl, because in the end we encouraged people to donate money to change the ending of the story. If you sent a sms donation you would get a thank you sms back, with a new happier ending to the story.

Online we did the same thing through socialmedia, mainly Facebook and Youtube, where you could choose to buy different items to warm her, these had different amounts and different endings. Such as warming her with a blanket, give her warm shoes or a warm place to sleep.