Challenge

Australia's organ donation crisis
Australia's organ donation rates have dropped to alarmingly low levels since the Covid-19 pandemic, while its national transplant waitlist continues to grow. With only a tiny number of potential/eligible donors each year, increasing donor registrations, family conversations and consent rates were all critical to increasing donation rates. As it stands, Australia has 1,800 people on the transplant waitlist – with 13,000 more on dialysis. But given 4 in 5 adults support organ donation, and registering takes less than a minute, we wondered why only 1 in 3 Aussies were opted in, and why the demand for more transplants wasn'tbeing met, year after year.

Approach

Revealing a more motivating story
We needed to bring the issue to as many Australians as possible and grow the number of donations themselves. This required a new, more uplifting story around donations – one framed by what is gained, rather than what is lost. To do so, we situated the topic within a perennial national love and talking point: Sport. This allowed us to promote the benefits of donation on both a medical and societal scale – showing how just 1 conversation with your next-of-kin could potentially save 10 lives, and transform many more.

Solution

An organ donation campaign disguised as a sport documentary
We worked with Transplant Australia to create a feature-length documentary film about an inspiring yet little-known event called the World Transplant Games. Airing on Ch10, 10 Play, Apple TV+ and Paramount+, this made for compelling content but to make it equally newsworthy, we created a first in sporting history by giving these athletes the opportunity to split their winning medals with the donors and donor families who made their success possible. These stories helped spark a national conversation around the desperate need for more life-saving transplants.