Drowning is the most common deadly accident for children aged 0-6 years. When a drowning occurs, knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is absolutely crucial for survival.

Having worked with water safety for over 65 years, insurance company Trygg-Hansa wanted to create an initiative to draw attention to the importance of knowing CPR for children (which is different to CPR on adults). The brief was to come up with a creative idea that could:

Increase public knowledge of CPR

Increase participation in CPR courses: + 5%

Earned Media Reach: 4 mm

Social Media Reach: 3 mm

Tattoos for children that illustrate the critical steps of CPR. This transformed the bodies of swimming children into living instruction manuals for CPR. So, in a critical situation, information on how to save a life would be present. To overcome any stress or language barriers, the tattoos use symbol design to show the steps of CPR. This innovative idea had the qualities to fully earn its attention and also present a solution to the problem (lack of public CPR-knowledge).

When a child is born, parents in Sweden are offered a course in CPR. But knowledge is perishable. Coming into the summer, a national survey exposed the fact that 6 out of 10 parents did not know how to do CPR on children.

By introducing tattoos for children with life-saving knowledge during peak drowning season, the whole nation started talking about CPR, providing Trygg-Hansa with a platform to educate the public about CPR for children.

To maximize earned attention and make the story more locally relevant, we placed tattoo boxes at public beaches with the highest rate of drowning-accidents and invited media to visit the locations and interview Trygg-Hansa’s water-safety expert on how to do CPR for children.

Over the years, Trygg-Hansa has placed thousands of public life-buoys on Swedish beaches, marinas and similar. The tattoo design builds on the brand elements and colors of Trygg-Hansa, which are strongly associated with water safety (because of the life-buoys).

Tattoo boxes were placed on the most accident-prone public beaches in Sweden.

Tattoos were distributed by the Swedish Lifesaving Society to swimming schools all over Sweden.

QR codes on the packaging linked to Trygg-Hansa's website for in-depth information on CPR.

A collaboration with Sweden’s largest Mummy blogger was established at the same time as other influencers were advised of the initiative and sent tattoos.

A press release about the tattoos and CPR instructions alongside the results of a national survey on lack of CPR knowledge, was distributed to media outlets all over Sweden.

Short videos for owned and social media channels introducing the tattoos and educating on the importance of CPR.

The innovation of CPR-tattoos for children spread all over Sweden. On TV, radio, podcasts and influencers’ channels, parents were educated in CPR.

Change in public knowledge about CPR:

Pre campaign: 60% unsure of CPR. Post campaign: 85% are familiar with CPR

Earned media reach: 9,691,000 (Swedish population 10 million)

Social media reach: 7,913,860

Increase in CPR courses taken compared to previous year: +70%

Brand consideration among parents: +10% (highest results in Trygg-Hansa's history)

Summer of 2021, the number of drowned children decreased by 33%