Brilliant Charity Campaigns

The NHS have just rereleased their #MissingType campaign. It’s a powerful message which has seen many top brands drop letters from their names.

Microsoft and London’s Tube Map are among the adopters of the campaign, showing their support by dropping the letters ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘O’ from their names to demonstrate solidarity. The campaign is in support of blood donations and the advert features a poignant voiceover explaining:

“Without As, Os and Bs, we’re nowhere. Help fill in the gaps. Save lives by registering as a new blood donor at Blood.co.uk.”

The success of the campaign in the UK is such that it has been replicated in countries across the world. Australian, Japanese, American and Irish will also be seeing letters drop from their favoured brands in a bid to highlight the need for blood donations.

The rerelease follows the incredible triumph of ALS’ ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’. The challenge went viral on social media, eventually raising more than $100 million for scientific research into the disease.

There’s no cure for ALS but the Ice Bucket Challenge has enabled scientists to take a step closer. The $100 million financed an international gene-mapping project. After mapping the genome of 15,000 ALS sufferers scientists discovered a new gene, NEK1, which has been pinpointed as ‘one of the most common genes associated with ALS’.

It may have been a social media campaign rather than a TV advert but it demonstrates the power combining a great idea and video can have.

Another powerful example is WaterisLife’s ‘First World Complaints’ advert. By overlaying the dubious ‘problems’ faced by those in the first world over pictures of those in the third world, the video ends with the powerful message that ‘first world problems, are not problems’. The complaints were then used as hashtags across social media, prompting the advert to go viral.

The close connection between adverts and the digital world is consistently being utilised to good effect within such adverts, showing that the two mediums are complementary of each other as supposed to being at odds.

Another advert that makes good on the connection is Chevrolet’s ‘Purple Your Profile’ campaign. Chevrolet scheduled the advert during the Superbowl as a way to honour the survivors of cancer. Chevvy pledged to donate $1 to the American Cancer Society for every person who ‘participated’ in the campaign by colouring their Facebook profile purple.

The advert eventually raised over $1 million for the charity.

Are there any charity campaigns you would add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.

If you are thinking about running your own campaign, feel free to get in touch with The Living Room for expert advice.