Sustainable Development Goals > People

HEAR MY LAST WISH

LEO BURNETT TAIWAN, Taipei / TAIWAN ORGAN SHARING REGISTRY AND PATIENT AUTONOMY PROMOTION CENTER / 2024

Awards:

Shortlisted Cannes Lions
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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

Why is this work relevant for Sustainable Development Goals?

Like Taiwan, 32 countries mandate family consent for organ donation, which means a single family refusal can crash hope. In Taiwan, 99% of families will refuse.

11,353 people in Taiwan are waiting for organ donations. Over 25% of them die before receiving the needed organs, while the remaining 75% endure long waits, imposing a heavy burden on healthcare resources. To achieve a successful organ donation, including preparatory procedures, coordination, pre-surgery preparations, and more, all come to fail due to family refusal.

Hear My Last Wish provides a revolutionary solution for all countries facing similar issues.

Please provide any cultural context that would help the Jury understand any cultural, national or regional nuances applicable to this work.

In Taiwan, people rarely discuss organ donation, especially older generations who see it as taboo. This is different from many other countries. Our cultural beliefs make death-related topics sensitive and often cause conflicts within families. Around 78% of donors don't tell their families about their decision.

However, due to the family consent requirement when donors pass away, organ donation transcends personal choice to become a family decision.This makes things complicated because families often aren't sure what the person who passed away wanted.

In fact, the requirement for final family consent in the organ donation process is a common challenge faced by other 32 countries, including Taiwan. Driven by doubt and grief, this skepticism often leads to families declining consent. As a result, up to 99% of families might refuse, leading to organ donation failures.

How does this campaign fit into the overall brand objectives? How is this part of the brand's wider commitment towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals?

The Taiwan Organ Sharing Registry & Patient Autonomy Promotion Center, a registered foundation, serves as the sole official organization in Taiwan responsible for organ donation. It has long been dedicated to advocating for organ donation. However, despite these efforts, the number of successful organ donation cases in Taiwan still lags behind other countries.

Outlined below are some objectives of our client:

1. To restructure the Center and enhance its competitiveness in alignment with international standards.

2. To advocate for and raise awareness of death with dignity.

3. To establish mechanisms for improving the quality of organ donation, palliative care, and patient autonomy.

The center strives to improve the quality of every aspect of the organ donation process, including reducing waiting times for organs, ensuring smooth execution of donation procedures, and enhancing the level of organ transplantation techniques among Taiwanese doctors.

However, due to Taiwan's significantly lower number of organ donation cases compared to other countries, the industry lacks practical experiences to continuously optimize Taiwan's organ donation quality. As a result, Taiwan's well-being environment of organ transplantation continues to fall behind international standards.

This is where the greatest value of Hear My Last Wish lies. It effectively increases the number of successful organ donation cases in Taiwan, allowing the industry to accumulate execution experience, creating a better well-being environment, and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Background

In Taiwan, 11,353 people await organs, with 3 individuals passing away each day due to the inability to find suitable organ matches. However, Taiwan isn't lacking suitable donors; rather, it often faces family refusals at crucial moments.

The Taiwan Organ Sharing Registry and Patient Autonomy Promotion Center has been working hard to find solutions to the problem of family refusals. We need to help families honor the wishes of potential donors.

Our objective is to ensure that more organ donation cases succeed and are not rejected by families, thereby improving Taiwan's overall health and well-being environment. Additionally, we aim to assist other 32 countries worldwide that also require final consent from families to find solutions.

Describe the cultural / social / political climate and the significance of the work within this context

In Asia, discussing organ donation is often avoided, especially among older generations in Taiwan due to taboos surrounding death-related topics. Deciding to be a donor faces resistance and lacks family support, This leads individuals to keep their decision private to avoid conflicts, with up to 78% not informing their families. Additionally, in the media environment, openly discussing organ donation is not widely accepted.

Meanwhile, in Taiwan, family approval is required for organ transplantation. Due to concerns about organ trafficking in Asia, the government and hospitals are more cautious and have established regulations requiring family‘s final consent.

Changing these cultural and political regulations is challenging and requires gradual progress. However, addressing the urgent issue of organ donation calls for practical solutions that respect cultural norms and regulations. Hear My Last Wish successfully helps Taiwanese society overcome this issue without fundamentally altering culture or laws.

Describe the creative idea

Hear My Last Wish (器捐聲紋卡) is a voiceprint database, a simple yet powerful solution. It allows donors to record their donation wishes in audio format for the family member to access it after the donor's death.

Integrated into Taiwan's organ donation process since 2023, donors, upon signing consent, can record their wishes on devices at the same time. The audio is documented in Taiwan's National Health Insurance Database (NHID), signifying donation wishes. In the hospital's organ donation negotiation room, coordinators will play the potential donor's "Last Wish" to seek final consent from families at the pivotal moment. It enables donors to express intentions, transcending life and death, letting family members know the donor's true feelings, providing reassurance and comfort, and convincing loved ones, facilitating successful organ transplants, and realizing donors’ wishes.

Describe the strategy

After conducting research for six months, we've noticed a tense atmosphere in the negotiation room as grieving family members face unfamiliar doctors and coordinators urging them to consent to donation. Without knowledge of the deceased's wishes, this adds pressure and resistance.

Changing cultural norms is tough; we can't expect everyone to suddenly feel comfortable discussing organ donation with their families during their lifetime. Our strategy involves reforming processes, allowing organ donors to inform their families after they have passed away, using emotional persuasion to encourage consent.

In terms of Internal/external challenges, It’s crucial to convince the government to incorporate our idea into the official organ donation process and integrate it into the actual execution sites. By connecting the government, organ donation center, and hospitals, we aim for deep systemic change rather than a one-time campaign. This way, we can maximize impact, ensure government investment, and make our solution sustainable.

Describe the execution

Hear My Last Wish launched publicly in June 2023. It is now part of the standard organ donation process nationally and accessible through the national health insurance app for everyone.

Official consent forms include a Hear My Last Wish section, allowing signatories direct access. Volunteers at signing stations nationwide offer tutorials, enabling individuals to record their last wishes via QR code, empowering donors to express wishes actively.

In Aug 2023, We also aid all 42 hospitals with training courses, user manuals, and standard operating procedures. This ensures effective use of the Hear My Last Wish database through recorded audio files.

In Mar 2024, we organized a special exhibition for Hear My Last Wish in Taipei, allowing people to experience firsthand the process of recording their last wishes. This well-planned event sparked important conversations within society and encouraged people to have meaningful discussions with their families about organ donation.

Describe the results/impact

Our biggest success is official integration of Hear My Last Wish into the national organ donation signing and execution process by the Taiwan government. Now, all 42 hospitals are actively collaborating and using our tool.

- 127% increase in organ donation consent signings, with over 84% of potential donors recording Hear My Last Wish, creating more than 3562 voiceprints by December 2023.

- Highest record in 10 years, with a 34.6% growth from last year of organ donation successful cases in 2023.

- 300+ organ donation signing stations with Hear My Last Wish have been established nationwide, reaching a total of over 50,000 individuals per day.

- 1 million+ views of the thematic video featuring actor Liang Xiushen

- $1.2 million+ generating exposure value, received coverage from over 20 media outlets.

- 19,000 attendees, with a total of 1,262 people recording their voiceprints at Hear My Last Wish special exhibition.

Describe the long-term expectations/outcome for this work

Hear My Last Wish has become an integral part of the official organ donation process, with collaboration from organ donation center, hospitals, and government, creating a comprehensive and sustainable ecosystem.

To ensure the long-term impact of Hear My Last Wish, we have implemented the following strategies:

1.Annual Large-scale Communication Campaigns:

-In 2023, a thematic video featuring esteemed Taiwanese actor Liang Xiushen.

-In 2024, the Hear My Last Wish Exhibition.

2.Collecting Testimonies from Organ Donor Families:

-Inviting families who have firsthand experience with Hear My Last Wish to participate in our promotion efforts.

-Planning a documentary showcasing real-life cases of voiceprint cards, documenting the use of Hear My Last Wish in organ donation scenes.

3.Expanding Globally

32 countries require family consent for organ donation. We are actively engaging with other countries to extend our influence beyond Taiwan.

Were the carbon emissions of this piece of work measured? For additional context, what consideration was given to the sustainable development, production and running of the work?

At first, we considered creating an external website to invite everyone to record their voice messages. However, this approach remained primarily at the awareness level, easily becoming a one-time campaign, which would be another wasted effort.

Therefore, Our biggest challenge is convincing the government to incorporate Hear My Last Wish into the official organ donation process and integrate it into the actual execution site. This way, we can maximize impact and ensure government investment, achieving true sustainability.

This solution can be easily adapted to various markets, and we are currently collaborating with clients to apply it to organ donation centers worldwide. We are also making our technology open source, sharing our expertise, database, talent, roll-out plan, and execution strategies to align with the market's needs. We are committed to sharing our experience until the issues caused by the family consent requirement are resolved.

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