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.

The output was missing persons posters reimagined, vital statistics replaced with heartfelt stories and reflections, grainy photocopies 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.

As MPAN is a not for profit charity organization and operates solely on donations from the public, this project had zero budget. All artist and writer time was donated, as were the walls, galleries and billboards where the artworks ran. The campaign gained traction through social media and earned editorial in printed, digital and broadcast media. With a total of 8 printed newspaper articles, 3 television editorial pieces and dozens on online news articles and reports. As well as hundreds of thousands of shares on social media.

The Unmissables executions were collaborations between families of the missing, one artist and one writer. They were placed in donated locations that were relevant to the missing person and incorporated details that reflect the person they depict. Their team colours, their style of music or their persona were components that made up their pieces.

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.

This entire campaign used walls, gallery spaces and even windows as our canvas to house The Unmissable artworks. The large scale ambient executions took over huge exterior walls of buildings to house street art murals of some of Australia’s long term missing people. The walls were donated, the paints were permanent and the results were unmissable.

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.

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