| História | On February 6, 2023, severe earthquakes shook Turkey and Syria. The world immediately provided emergency aid. One year later, media interest has disappeared and donations have stagnated. Yet the victims still lack the most basic necessities. The German relief coalition "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" has been supporting those affected for a year in the fight against hunger, poverty and for health and clean drinking water. With the uniquely synchronized media guerrilla stunt "Das große Wachbeben", we therefore brought the issue back into the focus of the German press and public – and thus generated new, urgently needed donations." Germans are generally very helpful and willing to donate. However, this is only the case when there is a corresponding cause in the public eye. As soon as media interest in a disaster dies down, donations also fall. This is a major problem for Germany's largest aid alliance "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" in particular – because long-term help for victims becomes impossible without donations. This was also the case for the victims of the severe earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. One year after the disaster, the region is still a long way from normality – and donations are urgently needed. We should therefore re-ignite the Germans' desire to donate – even if the issue has long since disappeared from the public consciousness. In other words, we needed to activate the Germans to make them willing to donate – by creating a renewed media omnipresence through smart and never done before linking of all media channels. The relief coalition "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" provides aid wherever humanitarian disasters occur. This aid includes many aspects of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as the fight against poverty, hunger, for health and clean water. "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" provides this aid not only in the form of emergency aid, but also as long-term support for reconstruction over many years. And it is precisely this long-term aspect that "Das große Wachbeben" emphasizes on the first anniversary of the severe earthquakes in Syria and Turkey. "On February 6, 2023, several earthquakes shook the Turkish-Syrian border. Almost 60,000 people died, more than 125,000 were injured and millions lost their homes. The world immediately rushed to help. With donations, relief supplies and medical care. But as media interest declined, so did the willingness to donate. For "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" - Germany's largest relief coalition - we were asked to activate people in an unseen way that those affected still urgently need support. The primary goal was to generate donations in Germany. In addition, "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" should be highlighted as the best partner for long-term commitment. As media presence links directly to the willingness to donate, we decided to once again make the disaster omnipresent. This time, however, we did so by shaking the German media landscape – across all channels and in an unprecedented synchronized manner with the help of various advertising formats of our partners." Germans are generally generous and helpful when it comes to helping those in need. At the same time, however, we are living in a rapid phase of permanent transformation. Digitalization. Artificial intelligence. War in Europe. The news seem to come thick and fast every day. Humanitarian disasters are therefore disappearing from public reporting even faster than they did a few years ago. As a result, the number of donations drops even faster after a disaster – despite the general willingness of the population to donate. Because without a public focus, there is no awareness of the need to donate. We want to change this with "Das große Wachbeben" – and specifically draw attention to the importance of long-term help via long-term donations. Most donations are collected immediately after a humanitarian disaster. However, as soon as media interest fades, donations also decline. Long-term commitment therefore becomes a real challenge for relief coalitions such as "Aktion Deutschland Hilft". In order to generate new donations for the victims of the severe earthquakes in Syria and Turkey a year ago, we therefore need to generate renewed media omnipresence. We achieved this with an unprecedented, synchronized media guerrilla campaign across all media channels: on the first anniversary of the earthquakes, we literally shook up Germany's entire media landscape - by shaking the advertising on TV, radio, DOOH, the web and even social media at regular intervals at exactly the same time. Visually and acoustically. Regardless of which channel our target group consumed during these recurring time slots, they witnessed a nationwide, virtual earthquake and were reminded to donate for the victims in Syria and Turkey." Our target group is very broad: all Germans over the age of 18 who are willing to donate. In the event of a real disaster, this target group learns about it through a wide variety of channels. Be it on TV, on the radio, on the web on a news platform, via a ticker on a DOOH or in the social media via corresponding influencers. In order to effectively reach the same broad target group with our media shakeup, we also had to use exactly the same media channels. And just as concentrated in a tight time frame as in the event of a real disaster. This is precisely why we chose February 6, 2024 - the first anniversary of the severe earthquakes in Syria and Turkey - to hijack the entire German media landscape. The relief alliance "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" is an NGO. We had no media budget available, which is why we deliberately entered into partnerships with various media service providers. We collaborated with multiple TV- and radio-stations, DOOH providers and various influencers in order to obtain free media space throughout Germany for the anniversary of the severe earthquakes. At the same time, we got a large number of well-known brands on board to provide us with their current advertising assets for one day. We adapted these digitally so that they were completely unexpectedly shaken as if by an earthquake and then called for donations. All advertising material was synchronized throughout Germany for one day so that 8 TV stations, 20,000 DOOH screens and radio spots on various stations shook at the same time. We also made our partners' banners and websites shake – as well as our influencers' channels using video filters. With "Das große Wachbeben" (The Big Shakeup), we were able to effectively draw the public's attention to the victims of the severe earthquakes in Turkey and Syria within one single day. With a media budget of $ 0, we reached a total of more than 4.5 million people across Germany with the donated advertising space on February 6, 2024. 2.4 million via TV, just under 1.6 million via radio, a good 340,000 people with 20,000 DOOH spaces and just under 170,000 with beamboards. Added to this is UGC through the followers of our influencers in the mid three-digit range. Overall, we were able to increase donations for Turkey and Syria by at least 239%. Thanks to the generous media donations and the consistently positive accompanying reporting, we were also able to sustainably anchor "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" in the public consciousness as a committed partner for long-term aid. In the long term, we want this campaign to make Germans more aware of humanitarian disasters. We do not expect Germans to remember every humanitarian disaster forever and donate to it accordingly - we rather hope that "Das große Wachbeben" could establish "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" as a partner that takes on precisely this task of collective memory, as long as people support the relief coalition sufficiently financially. No carbon emissions were measured. “Das große Wachbeben” (The Big Shakeup) is a purely pro bono project. The entire communication is carried out without a media budget – but with the help of donated media space provided by various media partners. The advertising materials of various brands were also made available to us for free. The 239% increase in donations is the minimum value, as the donations collected on February 6, 2024, were explicitly attributable to "Das große Wachbeben" and thus to the Syria and Turkey cause - while the donations in the days before could not be broken down into the various relief campaigns of "Aktion Deutschland Hilft". In other words, we were only able to compare the bundled donations from the previous days with the pure Turkey / Syria donations - resulting in a lower percentage increase (239%). The true percentage of the increase is therefore significantly higher, but cannot be broken down. |
