Excuses Excuses
2019 | Experiential Marketing Campaign
“Excuses Excuses” is an experiential marketing campaign designed to positively influence the behaviour and thoughts surrounding giving blood as an eligible 18-25 year old in New Zealand. We want to show that donating blood is a meaningful and important contribution to society, as well as for the individual, while also moving towards making it part of everyday conversation.
Paper
Creative Technologies Studio V
External Partner
The New Zealand Blood service
Collaborators
Gianni Gambassi
Liam ball
Project Website
Journal
Health needs of people in New Zealand are supported by the availability of safe and appropriate blood products, and related services provided by the New Zealand Blood Service
There is always going to be a need for BLOOD DONORS.
A demographic that plays a key role within the wider donor pool is the youth demographic (18-25 years old). Early recruitment increases the chance of keeping them as donors throughout their lifetime. According to statistics provided by NZ Blood, youth donor rates are in steady decline and have been for some time.
In this day and age with evolving technologies, a large volume of media and an over saturation of traditional marketing techniques, reaching the youth demographic can be a challenge. Therefore an innovative approach is needed to acquire and retain donors.
Based off of our own experience and the research provided by NZ Blood (personal communication, March 1, 2019), we identified various challenges faced by our target demographic. We were then able to narrow the problem down to four key pain points.
Ineligibility: Factors outside of their control as to why they cannot donate (i.e has been tattooed in the last 6 months).
Flexibility: Doesn’t have the time to donate (i.e. busy work/university schedule).
Accessibility: Doesn’t have information regarding donating (i.e. doesn’t know where they can donate).
Personality: Personal factors influencing why they don’t donate (i.e. fear of needles).
These four pain points highlight the main factors influencing participation. This gave us a basis to formulate our campaign around as it highlighted which behaviours we could influence. We understand that we can’t change these factors, however we can change the way they are viewed. People use these pain points as excuses to justify not donating. We want to change the perception around these excuses.
We have created a campaign that promises the audience the perfect excuse to use in any situation:
“I WAS GIVING BLOOD”
We repeatedly find ourselves coming up with excuses to get out of everyday situations. Typically these excuses are either non-valid or ridiculous, donating blood is no exception to this. By using excuses like “I’m scared of needles” or “I’m too busy”, people choose comfort over the wellbeing of someone in need. If people really wanted to donate, they would. “Excuses Excuses” highlights this selfish aspect of human behaviour by flipping the scenario and having a perfectly valid, and noble excuse for ridiculous, inane situations. The idea being that once the user is presented with the perfect excuse, they need to earn the right to use it by donating blood.
Read more about the project here or visit our site getyourexcuse.org
