Live Rescue
Issue 16 | September 2010
Agency
DDB Auckland New Zealand
Creative Team
Writer: Matt Swinburne; Art Director: Brett Colliver; Group Executive Creative Director: Toby Talbot; Deputy Creative Director: Regan Grafton; Creative Director, Tribal/DDB: Daniel Wright; Interactive Designer, Tribal/DDB: Steven Leong; Senior Developer, Tribal/DDB: David Vaughn; Developer, Tribal/DDB: Rowan Oulton; Editor, DDB: Steve Gulik
Other Credits
Account Executive: Sarah Burilin; Account Director: Libby Weston-Webb; Agency Producer: Tania Jeram; Senior Account Manager, Tribal/DDB: Tim Culinane
Date
2010
Background
New Zealand’s coastline is almost as long as the USA’s with more reckless, irresponsible, and intoxicated boaties than anywhere else. With little government funding, the New Zealand Coastguard patrols this vast area with just 75 boats. They wanted to show how tough this can be and why they need support.
Idea
By staging a live rescue event, the New Zealand Coastguard hoped to give the country a wake-up call – to behave more sensibly when at sea and to encourage greater funding from Government.
A boat was capsized, stranding 4 people in the ocean. At 18.10pm, real time POV TV and radio spots put viewers into the shoes of a Coastguard volunteer trying to recue the missing people. They were directed online where they could fly a search plane simulator. A GPS locator provided the live position of the real capsized boat but darkness began to close in.
Results
Thousands soon realised it was a hopeless situation. Only 1.8% located the missing people. It left everyone with the sobering thought that if they had been the ones who had capsized, they had less than a 2% chance of survival.
A 20% increase in visitors to the Coastguard website led to a 900% increase in online donations and overall donations were up 41%.
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