Ogilvy & Mather creates a “Vending Machine of Sounds” helping China i-dB Foundation raise funds during Tencent’s “99 Charity Day”

| | No Comments

Vending machine Sounds.jpgIn an effort to restore hearing for underprivileged and aurally-impaired children, Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai worked with NGO i-dB to create “The Vending Machine of Sounds.” Launched during the Tencent’s “99 Charity Day” initiative, this campaign -consisting of an H5, TVC and series of print ads -works to bring awareness and support to those for whom the world stays silent.

There are more than 30 million young people in China with hearing loss, with around 20 million of them under the age of 7-the optimum time to help addressaural impairment and give kids the chance they need. The TVC features a hearing-impaired child named Zifeng. In his everyday life, any ordinary noise–from birds tweeting to the rush of rainwater, from the laughter of peers to hissizzling breakfast –carries an expensive price tag, beyond reach for his modest household. Each sound is marked at around RMB200,000 (about USD30,000) – which represents the support needed to help a hearing-impaired child. Only with generous donations can children like Zifeng possibly achieve a life rich with sound.

Sound.jpg“We worked to see life through the eyes of hearing-impaired kids,”says Joe Wu, O&M Shanghai Creative Director and lead for the TVC and print campaign. “Sound for them is like looking through a glass window; a transparent, but tangible barrier keeping them from fully experiencing the world. Using this insight, we came up with the idea of sound as a luxury. In the video and the print campaign, we gave every sound from daily life an expensive price tag -more or less RMB200, 000. The contrast between the normalcies of those sounds paired with the expensive cost is meant to shock people into action.”

What makes this campaign unique is the donation platform, titled the “Vending Machine of Sounds.” The idea was brought to life by an inventive HTML5(H5) design, which integrates a donation function via Wechat payment, and can be shared in people’s WechatMoments thread. The platform features a variety of sounds – littles ones like the brush of cotton or a music box – which a contributor will receive in their phone after donating. This virtual machine allows people to easily donate small amounts -up to RMB50 -to make a big difference.

Sound 2.jpg“We wanted to design an H5 that triggered interactions with people, spreading this concept of sound as a luxury, and engaging them to donate. Buying things in a vending machine is a usual behavior for many people – we made it unusual by changing the goods into sounds lost to hearing-impaired children,” explained Marc Wang, O&M Shanghai Creative Director and lead on the H5. “People can then ‘purchase’ those sounds to make a donation. By compiling all of those small ‘purchases’ together, we can quickly raise money to help those in need.”

“i-dB aims to bring a better life to hearing-impaired children,” says Yao Xuesong, President of the i-dB Foundation. “This campaign by Ogilvy creates an interesting vending machine of sounds and a touching video to drive awareness for i-dB and it smartly utilizes social media to aggregate small donations. We are incredibly happy about this campaign and believe this is the right innovation direction forcharity in China.”