2021 Brand Experience & Activation

THE UNREADABLES

TitleTHE UNREADABLES
BrandWORLD VISION
Product/ServiceHUMANITARIAN WORK HELPING CHILDREN
Category A06. Not-for-profit / Charity / Government
Entrant TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Idea Creation TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Media Placement TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Media Placement 2 CLEAR CHANNEL Helsinki, FINLAND
PR TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Production TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Additional Company WORLD VISION FINLAND Helsinki, FINLAND
Credits
Name Company Position
Jyrki Poutanen TBWA\Helsinki Chief Creative Officer
Laura Paikkari TBWA\Helsinki Creative Director
Paula Sonne TBWA\Helsinki Head of Communications
Annika Wikstén TBWA\Helsinki Account Director
Jenni Karsten TBWA\Helsinki Project Manager
Jukka Mannio TBWA\Helsinki Senior Creative
Iida Korhonen TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Riina Uljala TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Katariina Ollari TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Iida Sarpaniemi TBWA\Helsinki Designer
Saana Simander TBWA\Helsinki PR Strategist
Ellen Lindbom TBWA\Helsinki Junior Communications Specialist
Erika Rajaharju TBWA\Helsinki PR & Insights Trainee
Sofia Heinonen TBWA\Helsinki Project Management Trainee
Anna Pollari World Vision Finland Communications Manager
Sini Tiensuu World Vision Finland Marketing Manager
Ville Bergman Clear Channel Sales Director

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

World Vision Finland is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to help children in developing countries to get an education and fulfill their dreams. There is one way to systematically help them in their mission: literacy. To shed light on the issue of illiteracy in developing countries the whole campaign and its touchpoints revolved around the experience of illiteracy. In only one week World Vision Finland became a global topic of conversation strengthening the brand’s position and brand image. The provoking idea ended up not only reaching millions of people but became a vital stepping stone in World Vision’s mission.

Background

In a world of endless charity alternatives, it is hard for a single humanitarian aid organisation to differentiate itself. This was the case for World Vision Finland: despite their important work in developing countries, Finnish people were not familiar with the brand and their cause. In fact the organisation was often mistaken as an optician chain. And who donates to an unknown charity organisation? In order for World Vision Finland to raise money for children in developing countries they needed to strengthen their brand and get people to sympathise with their cause. The brief was to come up with a creative idea that does not guilt trip with the benefactors and ties World Vision Finland to charity work for children and: a) Raises brand awareness to drive World Vision’s mission b) Becomes a phenomenon and a topic of conversation globally

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

A child in developing countries is an underdog when it comes to security, equality, safety, wealth and dreams. There is a way to systematically solve this problem: Literacy. In Western countries the ability to read is often taken for granted when in fact 770 million people, most located in developing countries, lack access to that basic skill. Without a personal touchpoint, the concept of illiteracy is hard to grasp. To tackle this issue the creative idea was to demonstrate the experience of illiteracy. Because experience leads to empathy, and empathy leads to compassion and action. Idea was to bring the experience to life by taking over not only major Finnish cities but also social media with unreadable ads.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Because the objective for the campaign was to raise World Vision Finland’s brand awareness, the goal was to reach the general audience in Finland. In order for the campaign to reach as many people as possible the approach was to use not only World Vision Finland’s own paid advertising spaces but also join forces with major Finnish companies and the most famous social media influencers. To create a proper buzz around the campaign and leave people wondering what’s going on, a decision was made that the campaign would run “incognito” at first before World Vision Finland claims the credit. To avoid guilt tripping possible benefactors a decision was made not to rely on conventional images and videos of sad eyed children suffering.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Together with Clear Channel, one of Finland’s biggest outdoor advertising companies, we were able to gather over 50 companies who were willing to let World Vision hijack their pre-existing media space, campaign copies and social media posts with gibberish – pro-bono of course. Also Finland’s top influencers joined the campaign pro-bono. 19.11.20 Brief 11.12.20 Creative idea was born Jan-Mar 21 Partners & influencers on board, materials produced 3.4.21 Campaign began: Outdoor, social media, influencers 6.4.21 Reveal: PR, print advertising, influencers, social media The campaign was present in 20 cities in a total of 800 spaces making the campaign an actual takeover. Advertising spaces were everything from large outdoor digital screens to roadside adverts. In addition top line influencers posted quirky social media posts that no-one could read. The revealing happened through a press release that was sent to journalists all over the world.

List the results (30% of vote)

Unreadables become by far the biggest and most impactful campaign in the history of World Vision Finland. In only one week the campaign reached in total 13,2 million people raising World Vision’s brand awareness significantly. What began as a campaign has since become a vital tool in furthering World Vision Finland’s mission and urged a global impact. Even before the reveal the campaign became a phenomenon on social media creating the much needed buzz around an important topic. With a carefully thought PR strategy 193 media covered the topic in 20 countries from the United States, to Germany and all the way to Australia. What’s most important is that we were able to get people to sympathize with the cause and strengthen World Vision Finland’s brand position.