hen Doctors Without Borders teaches the public about its work, it gets really emotional. The international medical-humanitarian organization aids victims of epidemics, natural disasters, and wars by sending volunteer medical and non-medical professionals to refugee camps and areas with weakened health-care infrastructures worldwide. Its success depends upon donations and the continued support of volunteers.
In 1996, Doctors Without Borders (also known as Médecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) created its first event marketing campaign: A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City. To dramatize the plight of refugees, MSF constructed a life-size model of a displaced-persons camp, and took it to cities worldwide.
In 1999, to highlight that one-third of the world lives without treatments for diseases such as tuberculosis, MSF drove an Access to Essential Medicines trailer across the country. Visitors “contracted” an illness, learned about treatment options, and, finally, found out whether they died from the disease.
What the Nobel-winning organization built were models of emotional branding: a strategy that evokes a deep-seated and long-lasting response.
Emotional branding is defined by Marc Gobé in his book of the same name (Allworth Press, 2001) as “how
a brand engages consumers on the level of the senses and emotions.” Through visualization and storytelling, emotional branding bonds a consumer to a brand. “All brands have one or more personality traits we have identified: trust, status, escape, responsibility, and conviviality,” says Gobé, president of New York-based Desgrippes Gobé. “Emotional branding communicates them on a visceral level.”
Even brands that do not have an obvious emotive component use emotional branding all the time. Think
of Nike, which “isn’t about shoes,” Gobé says. “People who wear Nikes are buying aspiration.”
But with more than 837,000 domestic charities soliciting money, the “helper’s high” that people get from assisting others can crash quickly after they’ve heard nonstop appeals. How does MSF continue to stand out?
“The camp evokes the most important trait for a non-profit’s message,” Gobé says. “Trust. People need to trust that its work is vital, and (MSF) does it in an above-board way.”
In emotional branding, that trust is built by appearances — because in emotional branding, the package is the message. The package the refugee event comes in — an actual camp — conveys an experiential reality better than any piece of direct mail ever could, making MSF’s efforts transparent. “Visitors see the reality of what they do and learn how they operate,” Gobé says.
The refugee camp has helped MSF double its number of volunteer applications. The Access to Essential Medicines campaign has persuaded more than 90 percent of participants to take action. Sometimes, getting emotional is the most logical thing you can do. e
First, Pick a Disease
In 1999, Doctors Without Borders created its “Access to Essential Medicine” campaign to raise public consciousness that millions die only because they lack available treatments. To drive home that point, it drove a 48-foot-long, accessible trailer on a 26-city tour, which included Chicago, New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, Missoula, MT, and Rochester, MN.
Before entering the trailer, attendees spin a “wheel of misfortune” to find out which of five infectious diseases — malaria, sleeping sickness, kala azar, tuberculosis, or HIV/AIDS — they will “contract” for the duration of the tour. Cards color-coded for each disease describe what causes them, the symptoms, and how people die from them.
Inside, there are color-coded displays for each disease. Each display is about 4 feet high, with photos of real sufferers in countries where vital medicines are either too expensive or too scarce — or both.
The last room is a spare rectangle with an unpainted wood floor and two naked light bulbs that hang from the ceiling. This is the consultation room, where Doctors Without Borders medical volunteers interact with attendees as if they actually had the diseases.
Outside, volunteers ask attendees to sign a petition to the President and pharmaceutical companies protesting the lack of available and affordable medicines (to date, nearly 35,000 petitions have been signed). By role-playing a part, the abstract has now become “hey, this could be me.” With the right kind of staging, compassion and awareness are just as catching as any disease.
The Misery Tour
In 1996, Doctors Without Borders decided if you can’t bring people to the reality of refugee camps, you bring the reality of the camps to the people — with a portable, 8,000-square-foot replica called “A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City.” Doctors Without Borders sets up the camp in public parks in large urban areas such as New York and Atlanta. The camp has toured the world for 11 years, raising awareness of the Nobel prize-winning group’s work with the world’s 33 million refugees.
Fifteen to 25 guides — actual camp refugees or volunteers who worked in them — role play with visitors to instill the reality of refugee camps and forge a long-lasting emotional bond that cements the camp’s memorability.
Visitors experience the same spartan living conditions that real refugees endure. The supplies aren’t props, but actual items used to feed and shelter refugees in the camps. The average American uses 100 gallons of water a day. In the camp, you get two gallons daily. Instead of your average daily consume of 2,300 calories, you’ll get a nutrition bar.
In 20 to 30 minutes, the tour evokes sorrow, pity, fear, and loathing — emotions that peel away attendees’ resistance and enable Doctors Without Borders to double its volunteers.
The camps target school-age children, supporters, the general public, and the media, including local newspapers, ethnic media, and local National Public Radio affiliates. Expecting 18,000 visitors on the latest U.S. tour, the camps drew 20,000.
hen Doctors Without Borders teaches the public about its work, it gets really emotional. The international medical-humanitarian organization aids victims of epidemics, natural disasters, and wars by sending volunteer medical and non-medical professionals to refugee camps and areas with weakened health-care infrastructures worldwide. Its success depends upon donations and the continued support of volunteers.
