2021 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Objective & Challenge

PROCURE is a Quebec charitable organization dedicated to prostate cancer. Its mission is to educate, support, spread awareness and fund research. Historically, PROCURE has been relying heavily on repeated donors giving great amounts of money every year. But when it became hard to attract new donors, PROCURE had to find a way to diversify sources of donations.

Insights & Strategy

Research suggests that men are less inclined to donate to charitable causes than women. Prostate cancer represents 20% of cancer that men suffer from, so the org wanted to find a way to encourage them to give to a cause that directly affects them. Another interesting fact is that 80% of men keep their wallet in their back pocket.

Those statistics sparked the idea of creating an object that would facilitate the donation process for men, by eliminating their hesitancy to pull out their wallets. The brand created the first-ever connected chair that could help people stand up against prostate cancer by simply sitting down.

Execution

The team designed an iconic and recognizable object that would be associated with PROCURE and would make it fun to donate. They made it blue, the organization’s colour and chose a very simple chair design to make it easy to transport and place anywhere. The chair’s seat has an integrated NFC contactless payment system (Near-field communication) that can automatically collect a small donation of $2, $5 or $10 every time someone sits on it.

The NFC contactless payment system is identical to those found on payment terminals in grocery stores. It accepts debit and credit cards that are placed directly in a wallet in the donor’s back pocket, as well as donations from a phone. By creating an object that would allow men to donate without taking their wallet out, It also led the team to create an innovative donation method that both raises awareness and funds.

The “Give a sit” initiative was launched on February 4th 2020 on World Cancer Day. The org took the chair on the road, in a variety of spots where men can sit: sporting events, festivals, malls, bus stations, garages, waiting rooms, etc. PROCURE is even partnering with global car service brand PointS to make hundreds of donation chairs a permanent fixture in their service centers.

Results
On its launch date, it gathered attention from the media who relayed the information and spread the word about the initiative. Compared to PROCURE’s engagement and reach averages, the launch video posted on PROCURE’s social media saw increases of 650% in engagement and 1,360% in reach. The organization also saw a drastic increase in first-time donations. The program was of course affected by the COVID-19 pandemic but that didn’t prevent it from increasing micro-donations by 438%.

Credits

Creative Direction: Xavier Blais, Maxime Sauté
Art Direction: Edouard Coune
Copywriter: Raph Côté
Account Services: Catherine B. Mainville, Alex Lefebvre
Production: Marie-Pière Poulin, Katia Dupuy
Strategy: Suzy Truong
Production house: Nova Film - Alexis Dubosc, Charles Gaudreau
Director: Julien Roy
Direction of Photography: Antoine Caron
Post Production: Studio Expression
Technology: Cortex - Philippe Nadeau