The Wishing Factory NGO has been trying to spread awareness about Thalassemia testing.

Many patients with Thalassemia Major die at a young age. This disorder is transmitted to children by parents, due to lack of timely testing.

Insight: Most patients only live half a life due to this disorder

Idea: #AadhiwaliZindagiMitao (meaning) Let’s eradicate this ‘half a life’

We asked celebrity influencers to post an image of ‘half a face’ to create awareness about ‘half a life’, tagging others to do the same.

The campaign engaged over 3 million people. The average daily calls for testing increased by 8X.

Even today, over 10,000 children are born every year in India, with Thalassemia Major, a life threatening blood disorder.

This disease can get transmitted to children through their parents who have Thalassemia Minor. People don’t know about the necessary tests that they need to take to check their Thalassemia status. The Wishing Factory has been trying to spread awareness about Thalassemia Major since 2015, yet the number of calls that they get on their helpline has been very low. There is very little public interest or momentum towards tackling this disease.

While the word Thalassemia seems familiar to a few, barely anyone knows the details about this disease and how deadly it can be for their children. This led us to our challenge of creating awareness about this disease and getting people to enquire about the tests.

When two Thalassemia Minors (carriers) have a child there is a 25% chance that the child will have Thalassemia Major.

In keeping with this, our target audience was men and women between the age of 20 to 35 planning to get married or married couples planning to have a baby. We were targeting educated individuals/couples who were present and active on social media in 6 urban markets, where the NGO has presence and can provide support and guidance. The NGO's ultimate aim is to eradicate Thalassemia Major from India.

We had to make our audience aware about the risk of them transmitting a lethal disease to their own children and therefore test for Thalassemia at the right time in their lives. The desired outcome was to increase calls to the NGO's helpline for testing.

A disease that parents pass on to their children, purely due to ignorance, is still killing thousands of children in India every year.

Partth Thakur, the founder of ‘The Wishing Factory’ and a Thalassemia Major patient himself was the first one to tell us about the disease and its challenges.

We met 10 more Thalassemia Major patients across various age groups to understand the situation. One of the girls we spoke to, passed away a month after the interview, due to complications related to the disease. This left us devastated.

The fact that - young, promising lives are snatched away mid-way through their journey - is the cruellest part of this disease.

And this led us to our insight:

Children suffering from Thalassemia Major rarely live beyond their 30s,

'which is less than half the life an average person lives.'

#AadhiwaliZindagiMitao

(Let’s eradicate this ‘half a life’)

An idea brought alive by using ‘half a face’ to create awareness about ‘half a life’.

We launched this campaign on 8th May 2019, World Thalassemia Day, by asking four celebrities close to the NGO, to upload an image of their face cropped in half, and tag three friends to do the same.

This was the message they spread through their post copy:

Did you know that when both husband and wife have Thalassemia Minor, there is a 25% chance that their child will have Thalassemia Major and reduced life expectancy? Today, on #WorldThalassemiaDay, by posting this picture of half my face, I am supporting the #AadhiwaliZindagiMitao movement to remind everyone to get tested for Thalassemia and prevent giving their child half a life. Visit www.thewishingfactory.org or call 844-844-9544 to schedule a Thalassemia test and to donate to help patients.

The campaign reached over 67 Million people, engaging more than 3.7 Million people through over 2,000 organic posts across social media platforms during the active period.

Over 7 years before this campaign there were 1422 posts tagged #WorldThalassemiaDay. In just 36 hours we got almost the same number of posts, as were added in the past 7 years.

The campaign received organic PR from more than 30 different websites.

The average number of calls to the NGO helpline increased from 5 per day to 40 per day, an 8x increase.

In the month following the campaign, 684 people took the test at the laboratory that was monitored. This was a 2.75X increase compared to the average 250 per month before the campaign

All this with spends under $400

As an NGO, The Wishing Factory, had a negligible budget. It became crucial therefore to have a disruptive idea that would attract influencers and through them the larger public, because we did not have the budget to create media buzz.

We managed to achieve this with a spend of under $400, used to promote key celebrities and influencer posts.

Number of posts promoted: 7

Approximate promotion spend per post: $55

This helped us attract some more audience towards the challenge but overall the campaign went viral due to the simplicity of its idea, the power of its purpose and immense celebrity involvement.