Life Time Clock
‘FURS LEBEN’ c/o Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation (DSO)
Issue 33 | December 2014
Agency
serviceplan
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Alexander Schill Executive Creative Directors Mike Rogers Christoph Everke Till Diestel Creative Director Christoph Bohlender Copywriters J. Jackson Christoph Bohlender Art Director Dimitrios Arampatzioglou Graphic Design Rebecca Amann
Production Team
Agency Producer Thorsten Huth Executive Creative Producer Florian Panier Production Company Saurus Bauten fu¨r Film und Messe GmbH Director Thiemo Hehl Supplier Production Company Sigmund Lindner GmbH Sound Design Lukas Bohlender (Isarmusik) Special Effects ARRI Film & TV Services GmbH Recording Studio Giesing Team
Other Credits
Account Supervisor Alexandra Rüger PR Thorsten Hebes
Date
June 2014
Background
Between 2010 and 2013, due to a number of recent scandals, there had been a dramatic decline of nearly 33% in the number of organ donors in Germany. But in 2014 there were 11,000 people in urgent need of new organs. On average, three of them died each day because of the lack of donors.
The challenge was to inspire more people to carry cards identifying them as organ donors.
Idea
Rather than generalise and talk about the lives of many, the idea was to focus on the life of just one person. Kevin. If he did not receive a donor heart, he would die.
One of the largest hour-glasses ever created was built. The sand that ran through it measured the short time Kevin had left to live unless a new heart was found.
The Life Time Clock made its debut on Organ Donation Day in Stuttgart before it went on tour around the country. When Kevin found a new heart, the clock was stopped and started again for a new patient.
Results
Around 90,000 people encountered the installation and were invited to consider Kevin's fate. Many thousands were persuaded to become donor card carriers there and then. When the Life Time Clock was featured on Germany's number one news show, Tageschau, six million viewers got to learn about it. It won even more media attention when the Minister of Health visited with media coverage estimated as being worth €630,000.
Our Thoughts
From afar it looks like a sculpture. The closer you get, the more like a metaphor it seems. The sands of time and all that. Not that you know what is running out. It’s only when you’re right beside it and reading the story of Kevin, dying of heart disease, that you discover it is a clock. Measuring out the last days of a man’s life.
Disturbing. Immediate. Effective.