The Problem
Potential donors to MSF were becoming increasingly immune to the conventional tactics of many charity advertising campaigns. These tended to feature gratuitously shocking images of suffering victims in a bid to guilt the viewer into a donation, without showing what is being done to resolve the issues.
We needed to communicate the challenging work undertaken by MSF volunteers without relying on the clich?d images that, unfortunately, no longer resonate with the power they once did.

The insight
Our research revealed that the most powerful way to motivate our audience would be to inspire them by focusing on the proactivity of MSF volunteers. If they knew what MSF were doing to solve humanitarian crises they would be far more likely to offer financial support than if they received yet another plea that only spoke of the problems. We needed to do this whilst ensuring that we didn?t lose the impact that charity advertising requires to cut through.

The Idea
MSF don?t let anything get in their way.
The ?Darkness? execution delivers a perfect example of this stubbornness; a refusal to give in even when basic provisions are lacking. The headline states ?Performing emergency surgery in a war zone is dangerous enough. Now imagine you can?t see your patient.? The unique visual technique which purposefully makes it physically hard to read the headline ensures disruption and stand-out in a category of clich?d convention.