Challenge
COVID-19 brought the world to a screeching halt. Blood drives everywhere were cancelled, resulting in the loss of more than 150,000 units of blood. Facing a dire shortage, Vitalant needed a message powerful enough to inspire blood donors and convalescent plasma donors to give. With strict shelter-in-place orders, we had to inform everyone that donating was safe, legal, and essential to saving lives. And we needed to get the message out as quickly as possible to immediately generate new donations.
Solution
With an urgent need for blood and no margin for error, Material rolled out a study to determine which message would be most effective for inspiring potential donors to give blood. We tested 12 messages with one clearly proving to be the top motivator: Every time you donate blood, you could save up to 3 lives. That insight inspired the campaign: Because of you, life doesn’t stop, which resonated for two reasons: Timeliness - It reminded everyone that even though social lives are on hold, the need for blood is constant. Life doesn’t stop. Longevity - The idea can live on beyond COVID-19 because it’s a personal call to action rooted in a donor truth—by giving blood, you are keeping life going for someone in need. We tailored the message to two different donor groups, recovered COVID-19 patients who could give convalescent plasma and eligible blood donors. With strict production limitations, we scoured news stories, user-generated content and stock sites to create PSAs, radio spots, social content, display ads, posters, site enhancements, PR content and email campaigns.
Results
Vitalant Donation Sign Up was 42% more cost-efficient than the client-provided benchmark 16 K+ Lives Potentially Saved 162 Mm+ Total Impressions $ 8.7 Cost Per Donation Sign Up
Want fresh marketing stories in your inbox?
Get the weekly email that makes you a marketing genius.
Stay informed and inspired, for free.