Since 2020, Russia has had a law criminalising the dissemination of “fake” news about COVID-19. In practice, this means that the authorities do not recognise the majority of doctors who died from COVID, in order to downplay the impact of the pandemic to the public and world. Their families are left without money and often without a breadwinner.

Together with the vblagodarnost foundation, we decided to address this injustice and solve 2 tasks - to keep alive the memory of the doctors as heroes ignored by the state (by telling their names) and to raise funds to financially assist their families.

• Budget - 1.5 million rubles, including filming and live promo

The popular singer Dolphin wrote a song for us around which we built the entire project. The eternal digital monument has become the main feature of the project. This is an endless live clip, which, using a neural network, adds the names of the dead doctors to the live clip every 3 minutes, and urges the public to send donations. We believe that the clip, like an eternal flame, will forever remind us of the feats of these heroes. In the video, medical workers are compared with astronauts in the scale of their accomplishments. As the symbol of a forbidden truth which cannot be suppressed, we recorded Dolphin's single on records created using a unique technology which was utilised in the Soviet Union.

There were 2 target audiences for this campaign. First, we approached media and bloggers with unusual X-Ray vinyls and with a live experiential video – a digital video streaming on YouTube. Second, when the PR campaign started we announced the song's release and an additional music video. The song in Russian and multichannel video experience was so popular that people shared our message on social media mourning fallen medical professionals. A main part of our fundraising was a charity auction with our X-Ray vinyls but it also included a song the streaming of which hugely contributed to the total amount of funds raised. Our music ambassador gave several interviews and called for help to deliver the message. We generated a huge buzz in social media – there is a UGC/art post every 15 minutes in Russia from all over the country.

Using a recording technique called “on the bones” which often featured X-rays, dissidents passed forbidden Western hits to each other. We restored this scheme according to the drawings and diagrams, since the original equipment was too old. We printed the vinyl “on the lungs”, symbolizing the forbidden truth bursting out and sent it in a limited edition to the media and to an auction, the proceeds from which went to a fund to assist the families of the doctors. The single itself also became a fundraiser - all the money from streaming went to the fund.

Our project was picked up by the media - 65 publications from Forbes to Vogue! Everywhere, except for state publications and channels. Our song topped the charts on all streaming platforms and people began to create art in social networks in memory of doctors, attaching our track. Every 15 minutes a similar, new post appears in Russia.

No one can hide the truth, especially regarding our heroes in uniform.

Results:

Funds raised - more than 1.5 million rubles and every day the figure is growing (live is eternal as well as streaming)

Media outlets - 70

OTS 230,000,000

Views and auditions - over 15,000,000

PR value 235,000 USD