Fao: FARMAGEDDON, 9

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: THE UNITED NATIONS FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO)
Agency: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, SEIDLERS
Category: Environmental PR
Advertising campaign: FARMAGEDDON
Art Director: Alina Sharif (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Managing Director: Dirk Göbel (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Account Director: Anke Schrot (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Project Manager Digital: Boris Zink (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Marketing Director: Isobel Kerr-Newell (Saatchi & Saatchi London)
Producer: Jan Bauer (Gehrisch + Krack)
Copy Writer: Daniel Henner Richter (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Executive Creative Director: Jorg Riommi (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
International Co-Ordination: Heidi Tzavella (Saatchi & Saatchi Berlin)
Art Director: Henrietta Singer (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Head of Creative Services: Michael Maximilian Maschke (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Producer: Sabine Gehrisch (Gehrisch + Krack)
Digital Creative Director: Sebastian Schier (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Creative Director: Peter Huschka (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
PR Agent: William Wells (Seidlers )
Creative & Communications Co-Ordinator: Zoe Kent (Saatchi & Saatchi London)
Sound: Chris Beißwenger (Studio Funk Frankfurt)
Digital Supervisor: Jochen Ihl (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Art Director: Marius Pawlitza (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Producer Farmerama: Sophia Ruppel (Farmerama/Bigpoint)
Senior Copy Writer: Frank Baumbach (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Producer: Iris Teubert (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
: Jonathan Degueldre (Twinfilm South Africa)
Director: Micheel Nwaisser (Gehrisch + Krack)
Regional Manager Germany/Switzerland: Netta Emanuel (Farmerama/Bigpoint)
Art Director: Nora Von Kalckreuth (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Art Director: Patrick Ackmann (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)
Producer: René Piroth (Gehrisch + Krack)
Art Director: Sebastian Lachermeier (Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt)

Effectiveness
With a simple idea and engagement with the right partners, we activated the valuable and relevant target group of 45 million online farmers in Farmerama, using them as a channel to deliver the World Water Day messages relevantly and directly to the desktops of millions of registered players worldwide, active in more than 20 languages. Alongside our direct targeting of the Farmerama online gamers, our online media and social outreach meant the idea had immediate uptake, quickly spreading the story on World Water Day attracting the attention and connecting with key influencers and gaming blogs such as Bild Spiel, Online Fighter, Gamez, Player Attack, BrowserGame Magazine, Prosiebengames.de, iamgamer.de, free2play.chip.de, casualmania.de, mmohunter and many more.Beyond the global gaming community (which is substantial) the idea also reached the broader public engaging conversations in 124 countries worldwide via the partners social platforms, and many other online sites such as Mashable, RTL Spiel, Fubiz, along with the official sites of the United Nations and Unicef as well as gaining extensive TV coverage.In one day alone, and with no budget, the campaign harnessed the energy of 45 million online farmers, generating an additional 20+ million media impressions and more than €700,000 in earned media in the right publications, both related to online farming and gaming, and to social causes.

Strategy
Our online stunt was based on a simple consumer truth: in the western urbanised world, a lot of our 'real' life is spent online, and much of our experience of farming has only ever been online too. We knew though that online farming games were taken very seriously by the players, since they required a lot of care and constant attention involving many hours of 'work'. We also knew that these people who put so much effort and passion into virtual farming were likely to be really shocked if a sudden drought would hit their beloved farm. We decided to build on these insights and use the platform to help real life farmers, to mobilise the virtual farmers for good, amplifying and creating online and offline conversations around the key issues of water scarcity. Teaming up with Farmerama, one of the biggest online games in the world with millions of registered users and published in 20 languages, gave us the huge amplification platform that we needed. And it was already out there, ready and waiting to be used for such an initiative. The further partnerships with FAO, Ending Hunger and Unesco World Water Day cemented the team.

Relevancy
Water scarcity, erratic rainfalls and droughts are a massive problem for more than 900 million people worldwide, who live in rural conditions where their survival depends on being able to grow their own food through agriculture. But raising awareness of these issues and getting engagement from the developed Western Worlds of Europe and North America is incredibly tough, as they are affluent and industrialized societies who see lack of water as a very distant problem.Therefore to raise awareness and support for FAO on World Water Day, it was clear we needed to find a highly relevant way of cutting through to people who had never experienced the issues of water scarcity first hand, that would truly resonate with them and their world.

Campaign Description
We set out to raise awareness of UNESCO World Water Day 2013 and increase support of related FAO initiatives and projects. The small amount of money these organisations do have, is badly needed for field projects and buying water pumps or tanks, so our communications budget was zero. We therefore needed a simple but effective idea that we could build synergies and partnerships around to bring it to the largest possible audience. That’s how 'Farmageddon', the world’s first online drought, was born.We started by contacting Farmerama, one of the biggest online farming games in the world, with millions of registered users; FAO, the United Nations Food and Agriculture organization, Ending Hunger, one of FAO’s operative field projects. We presented a simple idea to them that would take place on the upcoming UNESCO World Water Day – 22 March 2013: Leverage the power of Farmerama’s 45 million online farmers to help raise awareness of farmers in the real world whose lives are affected by water scarcity. The idea generated the spontaneous and enthusiastic reaction of all the key partners, including Farmerama, who committed to work with us for the cause pro bono.Then as we had planned, on the 22nd of March millions of virtual farmers logged in to their beloved Farmerama farms to find them completely without water, their crops in drought and their animals gasping for a drink – Farmageddon. After 30 seconds of panic and disbelief staring at their dry farms, our virtual farmers were presented with an explanatory message and were then redirected to the Farmageddon Microsite, where they could find out more information about World Water Day and the issues surrounding water scarcity in the world, share the message with their friends and family and also given the option to donate in support of the cause.The campaign resulted in 20 million media impressions and earned media valued at 700,000 Euros.

Execution
We created a partnership between online farming game Farmerama, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and Ending Hunger to come together and produce an online PR stunt for the Unesco World Water Day: 'Farmageddon'.No information about the action leaked before the action itself, so when the drought finally hit Farmerama on the 22nd of March, it was a total surprise to all online farmers that logged in to play. Faced with seeing their beloved, carefully tended farms in drought, players were eager to find out more about what was happening and why, and used the direct link to Farmageddon.eu where they found a video about World Water Day and had simple and centralized access to all of our partners pages to go deeper into the issues. Each of the players received customised messages on the day of our event, with direction to further information, opportunities to share and spread the word as well as information on the different ways they could personally support from a donation to participating into concrete field projects in person. As the day unfolded, all of our partners activated their social media channels, key media outlets published their stories online, taking the World Water Day “Farmageddon” messages far and wide.

Client Brief Or Objective
The goal was to create an event that would resonate with people in a meaningful way so that they would engage with the issues and potentially become a supporter (either through donating or clicking through to learn more or sharing it through their own social channels to spread the word to their friends. Using our partnerships we would then amplify this idea to bring it to as many people as possible, raising awareness of the issues with the largest possible audience. All on a budget of nothing.