nonsense

Challenge

Build on the success of the 2014 ‘A Million Miracles’ campaign, raise awareness of avoidable blindness around the world, raising vital funds for cataract operations.

Strategy

Sight is shared universally, however our audience rarely contemplate losing it unnecessarily making it hard for them to comprehend what this tragedy might be like.

Ethnocultural empathy suggests that we best put ourselves in the shoes of others if the other is similar in terms of ethnicity, gender, age or cultural background. So we set about developing an innovative way to allow our audience to experience the world through Laurinda’s eyes.

Creative

Nonsense created a campaign concept to continue the ‘A Million Miracles’ messaging. A key focus was ensuring that the concept had the legs to translate into an ongoing narrative about Sightsavers’ cataract work. It was important that the narrative covered the impact of sight loss in developing countries; conveyed a sense of urgency (average time from diagnosis to surgery is one month); and showcased the fact that money isn’t thrown at the problem but is used to help address the root of the problem.

The proposition: if it was your sight that was failing, you’d give everything to save it.

We created specially manufactured contact lenses that replicated Laurinda’s vision...and asked members of our audience to wear them for 24 hours and attempt to go about their everyday lives. We captured the result and told the story through a short film.

Alongside this we created a suite of content to engage the audience over the campaign period: documenting Laurinda’s cataract operation and creating online conversation by posing the question “How much would you pay to get your sight back?”.

Results

The campaign is ongoing, and has currently funded over 600,000 sight saving operations.