Save a child’s life from your living room

18 February 2008

Issued by Save the Children

From today, you can log on to a cutting-edge website designed by Rufus Leonard that connects you directly with children living in a slum in Sierra Leone.  The new web site uses Quicktime VR and Flash Panorama to create an immersive brand experience, allowing the visitor to navigate their way around the slum, experiencing the sights and sounds and meeting individuals living in the Kroo Bay community.

With its new fully interactive website, Save the Children is inviting its supporters to visit Kroo Bay, a slum built on a rubbish dump on the banks of the filthy ‘Crocodile River’ in Freetown, Sierra Leone. With one in four children dying before their fifth birthday, it is one of the toughest places in the world for a child to survive.

The website will allow families to ask the residents of Kroo Bay questions and experience what life is like for the 4,000 children living in the slum. Visitors will be able to navigate around 360-degree images of the site, and catch up with the latest news from the slum through regular ‘webisodes’.

The charity aims to highlight that it is simple for families in the UK to make a difference and as the months go by, the public will be able to watch the changes their donations have made for the residents of Kroo Bay happening on their computer screens.

The website goes live as Save the Children launches its biggest ever three year global campaign, which aims to reduce the number of children around the world who die before their fifth birthday. The campaign explains that saving children's lives is actually very simple. To help a child make it to their fifth birthday, it could be as easy as providing a £5 mosquito net, or £1 rehydration salts to help children recover from diarrhoea. The campaign offers seven simple solutions top save a life, each costing between £1 and £5. 

The TV advertising, created by Dan Norris and Ray Shaughnessy at Wieden + Kennedy will reach over 3 million people, targets families who want to know that their actions and money can really make a difference. The TV spot ‘Clever’, a 30 second TV advert which launched on the 11th Feb will be followed on the 18th February by 'If' both directed and animated by Simon Robson. Young award winning actor Thomas Turgoose has lent his voice to the campaign. 

The direct response campaign created by Andy Todd and Paul Snoxell at Partners Andrews Aldridge breaks on the 18th February with 60” and 30” TV commercial, airing on satellite stations such as ITV2, Living, UK Style, Cartoon and Trouble. Using the halo effect of the brand advertising the direct activity aims to drive new committed givers to Save the Children and visually combines the animated style of the brand communications with  live action film of a clinic, similar to the one in Kroo Bay in which a nurse tells a story about saving children’s lives in the long term. The marrying of child-like graphics with the reality of the film makes for a striking and thought-provoking story that will appeal to family and child audiences alike.

The iconic animated style is carried through to doordrop and press insert media that will again target the family market through publications such as the Radio Times, Big Issue and various national press supplements.

Mobile agency Incentivated, provides the technology to allow families to join the campaign and take actions such as:

• Text NUT to 81819 for £1.50 and we promise to deliver 1 days supply of micronutrient peanut butter to protect a child from malnutrition 
• Text NET to 81819 for £5 and we promise to give a mosquito net to a child at risk of malaria
• Join our online global petition to demand world leaders play their part in saving children’s lives.

The text campaign will be promoted via press, cinema, outdoor and experiential media, and signage in Save the Children shop fronts.  All advertising has been negotiated by media agency CARAT. 

Joe Barrell, Head of Communications, Save the Children, “This is just the start of a 3 year campaign to save children’s lives. We will be using technology allowing families to get involved and show the world just how simple it is to save a child’s life.’

Save the Children will be campaigning globally including activity in India, the USA and Sierra Leone in the first year.  The global goal to cut child mortality is woefully off track. In order to tackle this, Save the Children wants 10 million people around the world to take action by 2010 for the 10 million children who die every year.

Visit the site at: www.savethechildren.org.uk/kroobay

Read our case study on this project