We’re incredibly lucky to be born in Norway. How would your life look if you were born in one of the many countries receiving foreign aid from Norway each year? To expand on this question and put things in perspective we developed the ide of giving you an alternate new life through gjenfodt.no.
Norway donates 1% of the state budget to foreign aid each year. In 2013 this equaled NOK 30 billion. Norad is the authority set to quality control Norwegian foreign aid. They offer advice to those who administer projects and evaluate the effect. The results are communicated to the Norwegian public.
The idea of foreign aid is gaining support, but belief in current concept is decreasing, especially among young people. Norad wanted a digital campaign made to match young peoples point of view. The goal was to improve knowledge about foreign aid. In the autumn of 2013, Dekode and Gambit H+K assisted Norad with the development of an online based experience called “re-born”. The activity was a continuation of 2012’s campaign with the same name.
Engage
The aim of ”re-born” is to make people reflect on the importance of your starting point in life, and learn what is happening through Norad in different countries. The experience is enhanced through technology while content plays out on the center stage. How could we in a brief minute, reach people on a personal level.
The campaign is based on log-in through Facebook or a registration form. Through basic information about your life, you are given a new life displayed on a timeline inspired by Facebook. It gives users a visual context and reference they easily can relate to.
Facts and pop-culture
The timeline gives us the opportunity to blend foreign aid content with pop cultural references. We exchange your sir name and give you a new place of birth. You receive links and information about your new home country, and you can share the posts already made by your alternate identity to Facebook and Twitter. Images are feed to the timeline from Instagram and music videos with the most popular artist in you new home country are also published. There are 38 different countries, your age determines the type of content generated.
You can also see the new lives of your Facebook friends and share your life with others. Another goal of the campaign was to lead people to the knowledge quiz ”Norwegian Champion of Foreign Aid”
The campaign won 1st price at the Global Sabre Awards in Miami on the 29th of October 2014, competing with 49 other campaigns. It is regarded as the PR-industry’s most coveted price. It also won: ”Campaign of the year”, in Norwegian Social Media Awards 2013.
Client:
Norad (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation)
Role:
Idea and concept
Design
Illustration
Frontend development
Backend development
Web-application
Collaboration:
Gambit Hill+Knowlton
Url:
www.gjenfodt.no
Results
Since the campaign launch in 2012 more than 170 000 timelines have been generated and almost 20% of the users have shared their profiles in social media. The average user spent more than three minutes studying their new profile. Crown Prince Haakon was among the first to share the campaign. ”Re-born” received a lot of press from news channels and bloggers, it has also been used by teachers in elementary school as a starting point for paper assignments.