Restart

Background

Even though the number of donors had increased in Brazil, there were still over 66,000 people waiting for organs and the number of transplant operations had fallen. What was needed was to raise awareness that to become a donor, all people needed to do was let their next of kin know.

Idea

Young people were the most important potential donors. They also spent at least 40 hours each month online. So the idea was to reach them through the online games they played on their mobile phones and to talk to them at the precise moment they would be more open to the idea of organ donation: when they die.

If they died in the game, a message appeared reading: "You are dead but you can still donate your organs."

If they agreed to donate their organs, they gave renewed lives to seven other players in the game. At the same time, a Facebook tag alerted family members and friends to the fact they had become organ donors really as well as virtually.

All the creators of online games in Brazil were invited to download the program from http://restartproject.cc and insert it into their games.

Results

All games producers in the state supported the idea and many games creators in Brazil and abroad inserted the program into their games. In total, donations increased by an average of 173 new organs per day.

Our Thoughts

Sometimes, awards submissions from Brazilian agencies are hard to understand. Translating from Portuguese to English seems to be particularly fraught. Is that why this campaign won nothing in the new Health and Wellness category? Or maybe the numbers were too small. 'Only' 173 new donors a day.

Personally, I think it's brilliant. Right message, right time, in the right place and delivering all the right results. It takes a moment that matters and doesn't just solve one problem – how to get more donors – but solves two – how to get the necessary family permissions to take the organs as and when they should become available.

We'd give it Gold.