Cannes Lions

DONATION SQUAD

PUBLICIS COLOMBIA, Bogota / PONY MALTA / 2022

Awards:

2 Shortlisted Cannes Lions
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Overview

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Credits

OVERVIEW

Background

In 2021 gamers spent +91K million dollars on video games. The 2022 budget for education in Colombia is only 13K million dollars. This is reflected in schools' infrastructure that is in the same condition as the buildings in a war game like Free Fire.

Pony Malta, the malt beverage with vitamins most consumed in schools that fills teenagers with energy, also wanted to fill with energy the schools where they studied.

So we hacked the video game using the similarity between the game's and schools' buildings to create a new game mode that turned Battle Royale rounds into donation days and the buildings of the game into virtual representations of one of the neediest schools in the country.

But we couldn't make this action alone, so we invited hundreds of gamers to donate their digital coins to our Donation Squad that we convert into real money and help this school.

Idea

Since the buildings in the game are in poor condition just like the school buildings in Colombia, we use them to hack Free Fire and turn it into a donation center.

How did we do it? Through 4 streamers and for +36-hours, we invited players to collect digital coins, and instead of spending them on weapons, medkits, or reviving their teammates, leave them inside the buildings that represented the school, where the Streamers that were part of our Donation Squad would pick them up.

The +430K coins collected were converted into real money that we donated to the school and with which we significantly improved the infrastructure of the buildings, classrooms, and courts of the school, so that they no longer look like something out of a war game.

This is how we demonstrate that a digital mission can impact the real world and that video games can be constructive.

Strategy

Teenagers in Colombia, our target group, study in banged-up schools with buildings that look like war games maps. For this reason, we used Free Fire, one of the main mobile video games used by young people in Colombia, to connect them in an activity that wanted to demystify video games and show the oldest generations that consider them useless, that they can be constructive.

In alliance with 4 of the most important Free Fire streamers in the country, we used their social media channels, our channels, and big media coverage, which went from massive media to specialized gaming media. We show how a war game, despite being fiction, had many elements close to reality, and invite them to join the Donation Squad mission during a +36-hours donations day, where they could donate their coins and the time it took to collect them, for a good cause.

Execution

Using our social networks and those of the 4 streamers of the Donation Squad, days before the activation, we showed that many buildings, courts, and other spaces of the Colombian Schools resembled the spaces of the Free Fire Battle Royale map.

Then, for two days, we did 4 donation days through Facebook Live for +9 hours each, where the streamers invited their followers to play with them and donate their coins inside the 5 buildings on the map that represented the schools.

Finally, we convert the +430K digital coins collected into real money and donate it to the school to improve its infrastructure. An action that was so well received, that it was replicated by other malt drinks and even by Free Fire, who finally decided to join the activation by donating money too, in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil.

Outcome

During 4 streams of +9 hours each, we made a total of +36 hours of donations, saw by +200K gamers live, and where we managed to collect +430K donated digital coins.

Pony Malta converted those digital coins into real money and donated it to the 8 Schools, renewing 40 classrooms, donating +400 desks, restoring 20 buildings, 10 workshops, and renewing 5 basketball courts. With these improvements, +47K students benefited.

100% of positive feelings about the activation led Free Fire to join at the end by donating money, while 4 other malt beverages decided to replicate the activation in Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador, helping more schools across Latinamerica.

Finally, thanks to this action we got a free press return of +50K dollars and +6M impression, proving to thousands of adults, especially +90K parents, teachers, and staff of the educational institution that video games can also be constructive.

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