LADbible Group: The Illegal Blood Bank

Credits & Description:

Title of Entry: The Illegal Blood Bank
Brand: LADbible Group
Product/Service: UNILAD
Client: LADbible Group
Entrant Company: ELVIS
Creative Agency: ELVIS
Creative Director: Rob Griffiths
Creative Director: James Hudson
Creative: Rhys Hughes
Creative: Barret Helander
Strategy Director: Camilla Yates
Design Director: Chris Dorn
Account Director: Rosie Robertson
Creative Producer: Joe Revens
Creative Production Director: Lottie White
Brand Marketing Lead: Nick Hodgkins
Head of Marketing: Lizzie Barclay
Photographer: Daniel Malheiro
Date of Release: 2019-11-14
Notes: Overview
1 in 4 of us will depend on donated blood in order to stay alive. Yet millions of pints cannot be collected due to an outdated, discriminatory law that puts a blanket ban on all sexually active gay and bisexual men from donating.
We worked with FreedomToDonate to create a visceral, awareness driving campaign using real human blood that pressurised the government to change the law.
We opened The Illegal Blood Bank: the world’s first blood bank for gay and bisexual men.
In just one day, we collected enough blood to save 78 lives, and prompted an NHS investigation into our pioneering new process.
Brief
UNILAD’s brand goal is to share brave ideas. The platform has a broad audience, reaching 60% of Facebook users, with very diverse views. Our brief was to raise awareness of blood donation discrimination in order to increase public pressure for change, and identify and champion an alternative process of screening potential blood donors, in order to build brand equity.
Solution
We opened The Illegal Blood Bank: the world’s first blood bank for gay and bisexual men.
We pioneered a new screening process that assesses everyone fairly, then tested the blood to the same medical standards as the UK national health service. 100% of it was safe to use
In just one day, we collected enough blood to save 78 lives, and prompted an NHS investigation into our screening process.
Results
We raised awareness to increase pressure for change:
- Our online content delivered 10.9m impressions and 900k video views on UNILAD channels alone.
- We secured headline coverage on BBC and ITV news in a primetime weekend slot, as well as coverage across the Daily Mail, Metro and Jeremy Vine Show. It is extremely rare for a digital media platform to see positive coverage within traditional media channels, so we feel that headlines at prime time are testament to the impact and relevance of our campaign.
- We saw a 16 point uplift in awareness of the issue. for people who saw our campaign content. Awareness of ‘blood donation discrimination: 81% exposed vs 65% control
- Our content changed people’s minds. 62% of those who saw our campaign were ‘Extremely in favour’ of changing the policy, vs 46% in the control group.
- Meltwater’s social listening reveals that, on launch day, conversation about blood donation on social increased by 140%.
But what’s more, we sparked action, among consumers and stakeholders:
- 5000+ pints were pledged on the campaign microsite
- 61k petition signatures from UNILAD’s community on the Change.org petition
- The campaign prompted an NHS response, explaining that they will be investigating ‘individualised risk assessment’. They committed publicly to publishing the outcome in 2020.
We successfully piloted a new, safer screening process for blood donation:
- In one day, using ‘individualised risk assessment’, UNILAD collected enough blood to save 78 lives.
- All the blood was deemed 100% safe to use, showing that governments all over the world are ignoring millions of pints of safe, life saving blood with legislation based in bias, not science.