Hope Locker
WaterAid
Issue 38 | March 2016
Agency
Proximity London
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director John Treacy Creative John Treacy Rob Kavanagh Art Direction Simon Stephenson Digital Creative Gabor Eszenyi Head of Design Brian Eagle
Production Team
Senior Creative Producer Kathy Howes Technology Gary Jobe Andy Morris Lead User Experience Architect Hannah Locke Digital Delivery Director Felicity Weller Managing Partner Suzanne Partridge Water Aid Special Projects Manager Charlotte Forrest Water Aid Global Media Lead Fiona Callister Water Aid Head of Brand and Editorial Tom Burgess Water Aid Supporter Acquisition Team Manager Helen Radia
Other Credits
Media Monks Creative Director Jon Biggs Media Monks Head of Operations Wouter Smit Media Monks Creative Technologist Ubi de Feo Media Monks Sr. Mobile Developer Stephan Bezoen
Date
September 2015
Background
In an increasingly cashless society, charities, which relied on spontaneous and often relatively small donations, were disadvantaged.
WaterAid wondered if perhaps technology might provide a solution.
Idea
Hope Locker was a new media platform that married an interactive display with a coin-operated changing room locker to create a micro donation opportunity for charities.
For WaterAid, the idea was to play on people's anxieties about how much water they swallowed while swimming. Using the emotional power of this contextual insight, and WaterAid's own data, first-world woes were contrasted with the tragic reality facing the developing world. A personalised message showed visitors to the gym exactly how many children had died from swallowing dirty water while they had been in the swimming pool. The message they were confronted with asked, 'The £1 sitting in the locker right now could help – do you really want it back?'
For the first time, rather than a charity asking for money, people were having to ask for their money back.
Results
No results yet available.
Our Thoughts
Good to see Proximity London rediscovering its mojo even though, let's be honest, this is a prototype with a nice video attached. It can only have been trialled in a handful of gyms. Maybe even fewer. BUT for all that, it is a brilliant demonstration of 'right message, right time and right place'. Rory Sutherland, eminent maestro of behavioural economics, would love this because it is a classic example of understanding human behaviour first rather than just using tech in a new way. You've just been swimming. In loads of water. And now you are made to think how valuable water really is. You have to be a hard-hearted bastard not to give your money at that point and while there are many who pride themselves on the hardness of their hearts, there are more who would simply donate. This may look a bit like scam today but it's a great signpost to the future and how (let alone where) communications will work.