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The ONE Campaign BACKGROUND/SITUATION The G8 Conference was held in Gleneagles, Scotland July 6 - 8, 2005. The conference was a gathering of leaders of the world's 8 wealthiest nations to discuss the major social, political and economic conditions that leave nearly ONE billion people living in extreme poverty - nearly half of whom live in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the most notable statistics of this intolerable situation is the death of 30,000 children every single day, a child every three seconds, due to overwhelming hunger and disease that could be treated if sufficient aid was available. The goal of the ONE campaign was to make a significant impact on these world leaders by letting them know just how important the citizens of the world consider these devastating global issues and to influence them to take massive action in relieving debt, providing significantly increased financial aid, and establishing free trade that would allow impoverished nations to eventually sustain themselves. OUR CHALLENGE Jumpstart a campaign that had no more than 100,000 initial supporters to a level of such global proportions that it would have a deafening impact on the world leaders at the G8 conference -- all in a period of less than 6 weeks from kick-off to realization at the conference. The specific goal was 1,000,000 signatures in support of the initiatives set forth by the ONE campaign, a 10-fold increase over the existing base of supporters. OUR SOLUTIONS In conjunction with @radical.media, we approached the challenge on multiple levels:
We decided to utilize longer length commercials to clearly set forth each of the issues at hand as well as the necessary initiatives to address them, namely: increased aid, cancellation of debt, and long term trade reform. In this case, full explanation was critical to raising the consciousness of the general American populace who otherwise had no previous direct exposure to these issues and, then, to turn their heightened awareness into immediate, effective mass action -- in less than six weeks. Our first hand experience in collaborating with celebrities to instantaneously create a persona and raise visibility across a wide variety of brands was clearly applicable in this situation. In fact, anything short of that kind of high-level stature would have resulted in sure failure given the exceptionally short period in which a million responses were needed. Fortunately, a wide expanse of celebrity signatories had already voiced their direct support for The ONE Campaign making our approach to them all the more immediate. And, like so much else in Hollywood, to make an impact...to awaken people from the security and monotony of ordinary life...we had to break a few rules. In this case we valued the power of full engagement, a truly significant message being delivered by compelling celebrities, without 800#s or URLs throughout. We judged that if we could seize and maintain the viewers attention throughout the commercial we had a far higher probability of touching them profoundly and eliciting their immediate support than if we relied on traditional response devices that, in this case, could only serve to distract from a very serious and equally sincere message. THE RESULTS The effectiveness of the commercial was felt around the world:
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