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. But how to reawaken people’s interest in this topic and penetrate the predominant influencer lifestyle themes?

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.

As an NGO, Sea-Watch isn’t committed to a specific brand purpose. The challenge was therefore to create a communication that was in keeping with the customer’s approach without this framework. We therefore tried to develop this understanding through discussions with the customer.

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.