Cardiff-based Peter Gill & Associates, one of Wales’ leading design and advertising agencies, has been appointed to deliver the Donate Wales ‘Tell a Loved One’ campaign - the first ever organ donation campaign specific to Wales, and unique to the UK with nine charities getting together.

 

The multimedia campaign, which includes a series of bilingual TV advertisements featuring high-profile individuals such as James Hook, Connie Fisher and and Colin Jackson, is aimed at encouraging individuals to join the Organ Donor Register - and, crucially, inform their loved ones of their intentions.

 

“In the last five years more than 750 lives in Wales have been transformed by a transplant and the generosity of a donor. Sadly in that same time 150 people have died, many just children, and without more donors more lives will be lost,” explains Roy Thomas, executive chairman of the Kidney Wales Foundation, which is leading the campaign.

 

“The team at Peter Gill & Associates has joined with us to create a high calibre campaign that really reaches out to people, I am certain it will resonate with people throughout Wales, encouraging them to join the Organ Donor Register, and communicate their wishes to those closest to them.”

 

“This was the first time that a TV advert has ever been used in this way to promote an organ donation campaign, so Peter Gill & Associates has truly carried out some groundbreaking work.”

 

“One of the biggest obstacles to more lives being saved is that four out of ten families refuse for their loved ones’ organs to be donated – often because they didn’t know what they would have wanted,” explains Peter Gill & Associates account director, Jason Gill.

 

“Our aim was to make a personal connection with people, and, in striking a chord, help them to understand how important it is for loved ones to be part of an individual’s decision to donate an organ.”

 

The agency has also designed the Donate Wales web site, where Colin Jackson makes a specific appeal aimed at addressing the fact that there is a desperate shortage of donors from Black and Asian communities.

 

Furthermore, the web site features celebrities such as Stuart Cable and Max Boyce describing how they have been touched personally by organ donation.

“The Organ Donor Register is the biggest lifesaving club in Wales – with more than 775,000 registered to it,” says Roy Thomas. “However, that means that 73% of the population in Wales has still to register.”

 

The Donate Wales ‘Tell A Loved One’ campaign is led by the Kidney Wales Foundation, and is funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, and a number of other key organisations, including the British Heart Foundation, BMA Cymru, Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and RNIB Cymru.

 

Article source - Western Mail Business section. 02/06/08