American Red Cross
Storytellers Integrated Campaign
Issue 26 | March 2013
Agency
BBDO New York
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars Senior Creative Director: Linda Honan Copywriters: Iain Nevill, Kim Devall Art Director: Julia Blackburn Designers: Dennis Payongayong, Arielle Wilkins, Mia Doerwald Director of Integrated Production: David Rolfe Agency Producers: Sofia Doktori, Nicholas Gaul, Regina Iannuzzi Art Producer: Alison Berk Print Producers: Desiree Principe, Mike Musano, Darcey Lund
Production Team
Production Company: Uber Content Producers: Eliot Rausch, Peter Murray Editing House: Cosmo Street
Other Credits
Account Team: Tara Deveaux, Michael Arani, Jodi McLeod, Christina Liu, Gisell Galan
Date
May 2012
Background
Most people did not know that the American Red Cross and its army of volunteers were quietly doing much more than just disaster relief: from saving lives through blood donations, to teaching CPR skills, comforting families living through house fires or floods, and bringing military families back together when they needed help most. And who better to tell this story than the families themselves – people whom the Red Cross had helped, and who passionately wanted to give back?
Idea
300 storytellers were enlisted, people who had been helped by the five lines of service provided by the Red Cross. They were mailed a simple kit with a video or a stills camera and some tips for how best to depict their story.
Bravely, warmly, courageously people opened up their hearts, sharing their stories that were in turn tragic, uplifting, unbelievable and inspiring.
There was no director, no script.
What the families filmed and wrote in their journals was then turned into TV and print advertising, which drove traffic to the website. Here there were over two dozen stories from 23 states, edited from 250 hours of tape.
These can be viewed at: http://www.redcross.org/stories/
Results
Too early to say.
Our Thoughts
BBDO New York is packed with incredibly talented creative people, award-winning storytellers in their own right so to step back and invite those who have been helped by the Red Cross to tell their own stories, unfiltered, was counter-culture. But well done to the team who made that decision.
The story of the holocaust survivor reunited with his family by the Red Cross was one that particularly touched me.
As I understand it, this campaign started with an appeal to the many people who had been helped by the Red Cross. 1,200 submitted their stories from which 300 were mailed the cameras and booklets.
If you want to know how lucky you are compared to some, go to www.redcross.org/stories.