Creating a lobby for premature babies and their parents in the EU Parliament – that was the aim of an online petition, the handover of which we staged in an eye-catching exhibition concept. With contributions from artists and the stories and faces of those affected, emotional content for a 360° communication campaign was created at the opening event.
Socks for Life – live communication for a sensitive topic. The task set by the medical technology company Dräger for the EFCNI foundation was a challenging one: how to generate attention for the handover of votes for an online petition to the EU Parliament, which draws attention to the situation of babies born prematurely and their parents, which is in many cases in need of improvement in Europe. The main idea was to win artists for the topic and to get the campaign talked about throughout Europe via social media channels. Under the motto “Socks for Life”, well-known artists such as Robert Wilson, René Böll, Elfriede Jelinek, Ruprecht von Kaufmann, Ignacio Burgos and the designer Roberto Cavalli donated their works. The result was a high-calibre exhibition that those in charge at the EU Parliament could not say no to. A prominent space accommodated the art exhibition during a busy week of sessions. It was the only way to have a vernissage with many responsible and prominent parliamentarians. Children who were prematurely born officially presented the collected votes for the demand for common standards in Europe to the Vice-President of the EU Parliament. An eight-language campaign homepage “socksforlife.org” had prepared and accompanied the project up to the exhibition. The links to Facebook, Twitter and many national homepages of affected people’s organisations ensured the communicative success of the project already in the run-up.
