Situation: Child protection is one of UNICEF's priority issues. It’s the second year we run in spring a fundraising campaign for children in war and conflict regions. We still need to raise awareness for the new topic.

Brief: How can Switzerland be activated to support child protection in the Ukraine, Gaza or Sudan? We have the popularity of stars like Anatole Taubman who is a famous actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. The challenge was, how can we communicate the topic in a new way? And how can we offer children in need a stage without instrumentalising them?

Objectives: Awareness is becoming increasingly important in the fundraising funnel. New donors can be acquired here. The TVC is our door opener to news target groups. It’s new approach increases

the emotional value the brand UNICEF and activate Switzerland for donations. A further aim is to occupy the topic child protection with UNICEF.

We open on the message “In all wars, it is children who suffer the most”. We hear air sirenes, fighterjets, barking and children crying. The UNICEF logo appears in the upper corner. A male person enters the stage. Backlight. His name and his role appears “Anatole Taubman, actor and UNICEF goodwill ambassador”. We war sounds attacking the viewer. Anatole reacts on them. We see him suffer. The emotions of fear, scare and horror overwhelm him. The visual and audiovisual world combined creates a maestrom in the head of the viewer. There’s no time to breathe. The climax of the emotions of the actor and the sound effects end in a void. The actor has lost his feelings. He looks empty. The message “Life is not a play.” appears. Dark background of the theatre. The message “Protect childhood now: unicef.ch” appears. Sound of children crying and a helicopter overtakes again.

The main target group for donations is female and 60plus. This is precisely who UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Anatole Taubman is addressing. However, the effect of the advert is the same regardless of age and gender. It leaves you breathless and thoughtful. This gave us the opportunity to reach out to younger people, especially men. The TV spot has been shown nationally up to four weeks on TV, in cinemas, DOOH and via online video banners. It was accompanied by newsletters, mailings and newspaper supplements. This approach is completely new in the UNICEF world. Firstly no children in need are shown to trigger pity. Secondly, it is less about celebrity and more about what an actor can do best to help children in danger. Thanks to the uniqueness, we were able to increase the media reach of the campaign tenfold in some cases (9k CHF were paid cinema, 91k CHF freespace).