Birth of the #Fearless (‘Orädd’) campaign

In 2016, Swedish politicians and Swedes in general were becoming apathetic to the refugee crisis. Disaster in the third world had become everyday news and people were understandably getting quite cynical and feeling like there was nothing they could do to help. Save the Children Sweden wanted to remind people to be fearless and stand up for the children, regardless of what other people may think. And so, the #fearless (‘Orädd’) campaign was born. The feeling we wanted to instill upon the people with this campaign was a feeling of identification, a “We can do this!”- spirit and a belief that the individual can make a difference. That they are not alone in standing up for the Children.

The manifesto was as follows: “We will continue our fight. We must be as brave as the children who flee. And when politicians turn away. We must be #fearless”.

It was this wish to communicate ‘togetherness’ and fearlessness that led to the final mosaic concept. The idea was to use a sign-up website to collect data and profile pictures from people connecting via Facebook, and to then use those profile pictures as building blocks in what would later become the mosaic ad campaign, where the image of a young girl is built up of many small photos of people who have signed up under the manifesto.

The mosaic not only created a powerful image which showed how individuals can come together to create something greater than themselves, it also allowed people who chose to sign up to see a more direct effect of their voice being heard. This is usually harder to see immediately when donating money or standing up for an organisation, the effects may not immediately be so clear. But by signing up in this campaign, the signers got a form of instant gratification. They could see their profile picture become a part of the huge mosaic live on the sign-up website– and later on a lucky couple of thousand could see their faces in the printed and digital ads.

In the end, thousands of people participated in the photo wall pledge and literally became the face of the campaign that we took to the streets. The people that signed up and showed their support for the campaign were not only featured in the mosaic, but they also became valuable leads for Save the Children, that they could later attempt to convert to long term donators and supporters.