The Unmissables is a campaign that uses an online platform to pair families with volunteer writers and artists to reignite the search for long term missing people by making them unmissable.

Missing Persons posters reimagined, vital statistics are replaced with heartfelt stories and reflections, grainy photocopies are replaced with memorable, emotive portraits.

Some appeared as street art in famous locations and landmarks. Some hung in galleries. Some were customized to live on social platforms. Others appeared in the locations the missing people they depicted were last seen.

Created by high-profile writers and artists, the unique personal treatments combined with the non-traditional media locations made The Unmissables engaging and sharable, giving hope to families by encouraging us all to keep looking.

Twenty Unmissables portraits have been created so far, each with a different artist and writer team that were connected via theunmissables.com.au.

Some appear as street art in famous locations like The Queen Victoria Market and Brunswick Street. Some hung in galleries. Others appeared in the locations the missing people depicted in them were last seen.

For example, Bung Siriboon’s piece, was unveiled on a wall in a local shopping strip in Boronia, the suburb she was last seen. This ensured it was seen by people who may have seen her. It also drew local and national media outlets.

A collaboration between a renowned artist and author (choosen for their notoriety and strong social followings), Bung’s piece was unveiled during National Missing Persons week, to ensure her story received maximum media coverage.

Each Unmissables portrait was planned and timed in a similar fashion to achieve maximum exposure without spending a cent.

The Unmissables reached 1 in 10 Australians, reigniting the search for long term missing people by keeping the public looking.

The campaign also generated $4 million in earned media, reaching 407,757 people across social in just over 28 days. All without spending a cent on executions.

There are more Unmissables in progress in Canada, Indonesia, India, Mexico, USA and Portugal and more registrations come in every day. But the most important result of all: one new lead in the case of missing schoolgirl, Bung Siriboon.

By partnering acclaimed writers and artists to create emotive, engaging portraits of long term missing people, displayed in non-traditional ways, The Unmissables re-engages the public in their stories.

The launch of each Unmissable piece, at a location relevant to the portrait and the person, became it’s own event. Each one helping to reignite the search for a long term missing person in a truly engaging, newsworthy, sharable way, that encouraged us all to keep looking.

Our strategy was to reignite the search for long term missing people by reimagining the Missing Person poster. Keeping in mind the fact that the usual poster is considered litter by local councils and often torn down soon after they’re posted. We had to:

1.Keep people looking for long term missing people by giving them something they want to look at.

2.Create reminders to keep looking, that people want to talk about and share.

3.Launch the pieces in locations and at times to achieve greatest local and international exposure, media coverage and social sharing with no budget.

38,000 people go missing in Australia every year. While many are found, over 2,000 remain missing long term.

When leads come to nothing, cases go cold and the media moves on, it can be almost impossible for families to maintain the public interest needed to continue the search for their missing loved one.

Our task was to reignite the search for long term missing people by re-engaging the public in their stories.

Objective 1: Help families reignite the search for long term missing loved ones

Objective 2: Make the faces and stories of long term missing people memorable and sharable

Objective 3: Generate leads in long term missing person cases