NHS Blood and Transplant — Waiting to Live

There are not enough child organ donors in the UK, because no parent wants to think about the possibility of their child's death. But there are 233 children on the transplant list, waiting. To give these children a higher likelihood of finding a lifesaving donation, the campaign urgently needed to change attitudes and encourage families to join the NHS Organ Donor Register. The brief was to make this invisible wait public, telling the real-life stories of children currently on the waiting list. By showing the world the wait these children face in the most unavoidable and poignant way, we could help end it and increase the likelihood of finding lifesaving donors.

The idea: 233 handcrafted dolls, representing 233 real children on the transplant waiting list were placed in their local medical waiting rooms around the UK. Scanning a QR code allowed exactly the right audience to listen to the real children's stories, and hear why they should sign up to the organ donor register.

In November 2023, Waiting to Live launched across TV, VOD, cinema, OOH, social and press. On the day of launch alone, it earned 263 items of coverage, including The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail and Daily Mirror, resulting in a reach of nearly 206 million.

This led to the campaign being named Work of the Week in Creative Salon in November 2023 and it went on to win over 30 awards including at D&AD and Cannes Lions.