Our work shows that – now more than ever – we need to ensure that communication is not simply one-sided, but involves people emotionally in a topic or brand. So the campaign was not just meant to be creative; it also had to guide the consumer through a brand experience with skilful use of the consumer journey. This is the only way to penetrate the hearts and minds of consumers and bring about a real change in behaviour.

The world is in crisis – and people have become numb to constant images of suffering. They no longer respond to communications that promote charitable causes by depicting misery. This particularly applies to awareness of refugee deaths in the Mediterranean, which is steadily falling. This is something civilian maritime rescue organisation Sea-Watch knows all too well. And for an NGO with no state-run alternative, which is totally reliant upon donations, it’s a catastrophe. These vital donations, which are required to maintain their rescue vessels, can only be generated by raising awareness.

We had to dramatically raise the issue of civilian maritime rescue in a way that would encourage people to donate. At the same time, we had to avoid traditional narrative styles; the numbing effect of dramatic advertising narratives and the sheer amount of traditional lifestyle content had rendered it ineffective.

But how to reawaken people’s interest in this topic and penetrate the predominant influencer lifestyle themes? The answer: if people prefer to focus on lifestyle products – both online and offline – then we would present drowning in the Mediterranean as a lifestyle product, with the true background story only revealed later.

We created Trojan horse: a fictitious ‘lifestyle drink’, that was intended to infiltrate the audience. “erTrinkwasser” was not a trendy drink, but rather highlighting the tragic drownings using influencer marketing.

The message was delivered like a punch to the gut, which would inevitably increase people’s willingness to donate. Because if portraying suffering no longer has an effect, you have to confront people with their behaviour. The aim was that anyone who followed the ‘lifestyle’ advert for the fictitious drink would be all the more shocked by their behaviour: following the cool ad, while often ignoring other appeals.

Every asset initially appeared to be conveying a positive lifestyle message. The headlines of the key visuals contained a double meaning that made them unbearable. The sense that something was wrong with the motifs was confirmed by QR codes linked to the landing page, where users were confronted with the shocking revelation.

The campaign not only achieved 18 million views during the implementation period, but also gained a great many supporters for the message, helping us to generate further coverage by means of pro bono placements. TV reports provided additional national reach – all of which ensured that donations tripled within days. This money was urgently needed to purchase a new rescue vessel, Sea-Watch 5, and save lives.

In the motifs, we pushed the ambiguity of the headlines to the limit. Every line of the campaign had a double meaning: a lifestyle meaning and a more sombre meaning that referred to drowning in the Mediterranean. With puns generally only used in Germany in a humorous context, the shocking moment when the truth was revealed to the viewer was even more intense.