80% of children in orphanages are not orphans. This staggering fact is at the heart of this brand repositioning campaign developed for International NGO, Hope and Homes for Children.
CHALLENGE
There was little general awareness that 80% of children in orphanages are not orphans, and that there are 5.4 million children around the world currently housed in these institutions. Orphanages expose children to the very real dangers of abuse, neglect and trafficking, and physical and psychological trauma that can last a lifetime. However, orphanages were mostly perceived by the general public as a necessary, even good thing – providing for children who have no family. The solution to the issue is complex, involving advocacy at local, national and global levels, programmes in multiple regions, cultural change and education of orphanage owners and funders.
APPROACH
To simply pitch the organisation’s actual work in terms of ‘we close orphanages’ would alienate most people – who accepted that orphanages were for actual orphans and therefore a good/ necessary thing. We needed to flip this argumentative proposition into a positive statement that would have people instantly understanding and supporting our mission. We defined the long list of stakeholders we needed to influence as ‘People who care about, or are responsible for the care of, children.’ We placed our proposition in the territory where we and our stakeholders (even orphanage owners and supporters) already passionately agree – the importance of family – and rather than focus on an experience particular to an institutionalised child, we utilised an emotional trigger to which every person can relate: ‘The heartbreak of separation’.
This led us to the proposition:
Join our mission to help millions of separated children find their way Back to Family.
From the proposition we developed an acquisition and awareness campaign featuring Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, esteemed actor and long-term patron of the organisation, along with other high profile supporters including Gary Oldman and Stockard Channing, urging people who currently donate to orphanages to move their funding to care reform that will help get the 5.4 million children currently stuck in orphanages Back to Family.
OUTCOMES
Acquired thousands of new donors/ 22% year-on-year increase in regular giving/ 25% growth in social media following in 12 months.
OUTPUTS
Brand positioning / Brand Narrative/ Brand Manifesto/ Brand Manifesto Video/ Storytelling/ Tagline/ Wordmark/ Updated Brand Guidelines/ Advertising/ Content Creation/ Social media paid and organic/ Digital Acquisition Campaign/ Internal presentation and embedding of brand to multi-lingual, multi-cultural global organisation/ Built, developed and managed internal Public Engagement team of 12 professionals.
Back to Family positioning, campaign concept and script by Brian Daly – contracted as Global Director of Public Engagement
Produced by Hope and Homes for Children