Misereor: The Social Swipe – charity advertising done right

I remember an early lesson from my ex-boss about charity advertising: ask for a specific amount. Instead of saying ‘donate generously’ asking for a specific amount has a better chance of getting a donation. Second, make the response mechanism easy. In advertising, I grew up in the print era where the coupon was a powerful call to action. And the coupons typically were ‘design elements’ which the Art Director wanted to hide or tuck away in some corner. Coupons, I learnt the hard way, should ideally be placed in the right hand bottom corner at the edge of the paper, so as to be cut out easily. I have seen ads with coupons in an island position in a newspaper, taking away any chance of a response. In any case, filling such coupons with relevant details of full name, address was near impossible.

Anyway, I digress. I came across a fantastic activity which won a Gold Lion in the outdoor category at the 2014 Cannes Lions festival: charity organisation Misereor, created an interactive display which asked for a specific amount, made donation easy and the entire experience rewarding.

Agency: Kolle Rebbe

Among the visuals, loved the creative idea of a credit card swipe cutting the chord and freeing somebody.