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.

A number of executions make up The Unmissables.

The first is The Unmissables online platform. Where families of long term missing people go to be paired with volunteer writers and artists to create an unmissable portrait of their missing loved one.

The second is a series of online films by artists, writers and families encouraging people to register as volunteer artists and writers and donate walls for The Unmissables to appear on.

The third is The Unmissables portraits themselves. Since launch, 17 Unmissables portraits have been created, each with a different artists and writer team.

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

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.

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