In Turkey, 26,000 patients are waiting for organ donation to hold on to life. 10% of this waiting list lose their lives, as they can not find a matching organ. On the other hand, family permission is obligatory for organ transplantation and those who lose their relatives can be reluctant to give permission due to social-cultural, religious and emotional barriers. This situation creates one of the biggest obstacles for organ transplantation in the country. The main goals of this campaign were raising awareness about organ donation (Goal 1) and drawing attention to the disinclination of family members (Goal 2) in organ donor. Furthermore, the long term objective was increasing the overall organ donation in the country (Long Term Objective) . In order to achieve these goals and objectives, we created an integrated awareness campaign with the collaboration of Turkish Society of Transplant Coordinators and Novartis Turkey.

Our creative idea was based on a universal insight; “as humans we do not want to remain unresponsive to people in our immediate circles who are trying to hold on to life”. We created a flashmob activity and spread its video virally. In this event, we recruited an elderly male cast acting as if he was having an heart attack and other casts acted as the customers who were unresponsive. The indifference of other people was a real shock to the original customer who was unaware of this event. This flashmob idea helped the viewers to empathize with the original customer and built a hype in social media. In the second place, we created a new concept called "account donation". A Turkish celebrity gave a life-saving permission and donated her Twitter account to the patients in organ waiting list to help them spread their stories.

Primary Target Audience for Organ Transplantation: The family members of organs donors (300.000 families)

General Target Audience for Organ Donation Awareness Campaign: Turkish speaking internet users / A, B, C SES Groups / 18+ (38 million people)

Communication Strategy: In this campaign, our aim was to stress upon the importance of giving permission for organ donation and to remove the barriers of families who are reluctant to do so. We implemented a tactical execution to realize these goals and made a video film based on a flash-mob event. This video was utile to make the audience establish empathy with life-savers that do not remain unresponsive to people who are fighting for their lives and make audience question their unresponsiveness. Secondly, we wanted to create role-models who give “life-saving consent” to “save the lives of people” waiting for organ transplantation. This strategy was implemented by our unique “Twitter account donation” project.

Timeline: From November, 3rd to November 9th (During Organ Donation Week)

Implementation / Placement:

Flash-mob event and film: The flash-mob event was organized the week prior to the organ donation week and the flash-mob video was aired on social media accounts of Novartis and ONKOD & received media support during the week.

Print Ad: It took place in the special “organ donation” issue of Hürriyet (newspaper with 2nd largest circulation)

Account donation campaign: This project was realized on Twitter during organ donation week

Screening at the universities: University awareness screenings took place after the 9th of November and it lasted for a month in all the universities in Turkey.

Scaling: Identifying content that has performed best in the past: Use of flash-mob video and the right celebrity choice (Actress Ceyda Düvenci)

Total Reach: +7 Million People

Total Budget: 40 K Euros

Our integrated campaign attracted attention and appreciated by the target audience. Our campaign managed to reach more than 7 million people and our film has been watched by 1.7 million single users. With the right choice of print medium and right timing, our advertorial reached 842.508 people on a single day. In addition to this, our Account Donation Project, in collaboration with a Turkish celebrity, has managed to reach 168.125 people on Twitter during organ donation week without any media support. Likewise, our campaign also took place in news section of several popular digital platforms in Turkey, online business / advertising magazines organically and spread voluntarily by leading influencers on social media. As our client Novartis reached their business targets with this efficient campaign, Novartis Turkey became the winner of “annual procurement award” across all Novartis offices.