Searching For Hearts
Peruvian Cancer Foundation
Issue 29 | December 2013
Agency
Mayo Draftfcb Peru
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Humberto Polar Creative Director Victor Velez Julio Oshiro Copywriter Victor Velez Art Director Julio Oshiro
Production Team
Production Company Tunche Films Director Jose Zelada Music La Sonora Daniel Sacroisky
Other Credits
Account Director Ricardo Ortiz Client Supervisor Susana De Los Rios Media Strategy Execution BPN/Madia Media Director Gloria Herrera Media Planner Jessica Arizmendi
Date
July 2013
Background
Despite the fact that Peru's economy is growing, there was a growing trend of indifference in the country towards charities. The Peruvian Cancer Foundation had needed to raise 1 million soles (US$380,000) annually but since 2010 had raised only 700,000 soles (US$260,000) per year.
The task, then, was to reverse this mindset and soften hard hearts.
Idea
In 2013, to shame ordinary Peruvians into donating, the "Ponle Corazo´n" (Searching for Hearts) campaign was initiated inside Peru's most dangerous prison, Castro Castro Penitentiary. The convicts belonged to a group usually regarded as being remorselessly uncaring.
However, the opposite was shown to be the case when the prisoners raised money among themselves for the charity.
Their help made news headlines and the story helped the campaign achieve real, measurable success against all its objectives.
The initiative not only showed prison as not so much a cage for animals as a place for healing and redemption, it also demonstrated the uncomfortable truth that both prison inmates and sick children have something in common. Society does not like to think about them.
Results
Donations on the streets after the campaign were the most successful in the foundation's history. The
total still had to be counted at the time of the submission to Directory. However, the goal of one million soles goal was easily surpassed and a new record for donations established.
Our Thoughts
This is another of those submission videos (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ksH5iJLkK9U) which is genuinely touching. Quite simply, the strategy is emotional blackmail. If convicted thieves and murderers are moved enough by the plight of sick children to donate what little they can, shouldn’t you be moved too?
Leveraging guilt certainly worked. What the submission didn’t tell us was that as well as money pouring in came letters and gifts for the cancer-stricken children urging them not to give up hope. That was the uplifting message of this remarkable idea. That even in prison the inmates had not given up hope for themselves. Despite the bars, they had not abandoned their humanity.