Objective

Following CG&A's success in launching April 2006's "Donate Life Month" campaign for Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network, Gift of Hope retained CG&A to manage an 18-month campaign on behalf of Donate Life Illinois, the statewide coalition of donation agencies. The campaign kicked off in January 2007 with the goal of both educating the public about the state's new donor consent registry and ultimately, registering 3.5 million Illinoisans as organ and tissue donors.

Action

CG&A laid the groundwork for the campaign by conducting a statewide poll to establish baseline feedback about current attitudes and beliefs about the issue. In defining the target audience of 18-35 year-olds, CG&A saw a unique opportunity to create a strong social media platform and connect with supporters online while driving registrations through key tools such as Tell-A-Friend emails, a blog, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and Facebook.

Recognizing the high degree of word of mouth influence of college students, CG&A utilized its social media platform to initiate the inaugural Donate Life Illinois Campus Challenge, a one-month registration competition among 20 colleges. To supplement the effort, a series of videos starring the campaign’s mascot, Morgan D’ Organ, were produced and featured on all of the campaign’s social networking outlets to keep students engaged online throughout the campaign.

Results

By the end, CG&A achieved major success for Gift of Hope and Donate Life Illinois. The campaign Web site generated substantial traffic, averaging 15,000 unique visits each month and more than 30,000 registrations. Within a year, CG&A created a network of over 6,000 online supporters via MySpace and Facebook, averaged 1,300 unique monthly blog visits and generated more than 90,000 combined views of their various videos on YouTube, ranking among the top search results for "organ donation."

The Campus Challenge alone generated more than 5,000 registrations.

Ultimately, the Donate Life Illinois campaign reached its goal of 3.5 million registrations while maintaining one structured online brand. More importantly, more than 800 lifesaving organ transplants took place through Gift of Hope and the generosity of donors in 2007.