UNICEF ZEROawards by Rice Creative

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CLIENT

A Unit­ed Nations pro­gram head­quar­tered in New York, NY, that pro­vides long-term human­i­tar­i­an and devel­op­men­tal assis­tance to chil­dren and moth­ers in devel­op­ing countries.

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BRIEF

Cre­ate a strate­gic plat­form from which sig­nif­i­cant funds could be solicit­ed from Viet­namese elite to sup­port UNICEF Viet­nam local­ly. As Viet­nam entered a mid­dle income glob­al sta­tus, UNICEF Viet­nam became inel­i­gi­ble for some exter­nal funds. Even so, 100 chil­dren would die dai­ly of pre­ventable caus­es in the coun­try. Aware­ness of UNICEF was low, though they had oper­at­ed in Viet­nam suc­cess­ful­ly since the mid 1950s. UNICEF need­ed a fundrais­ing plat­form which would cap­ture the imag­i­na­tions of Viet­nam’s most suc­cess­ful indi­vid­u­als and cor­po­ra­tions and inspire them to gen­er­ous­ly donate.

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APPROACH

Build­ing upon UNICE­F’s glob­al plat­form “Believe in ZERO” we cre­at­ed and brand­ed a new, high pro­file prop­er­ty called the UNICEF ZEROawards cel­e­brat­ing human­i­tar­i­an acts by Viet­namese individuals—trophies would be award­ed at a cer­e­mo­ny. The brand is cen­tered around a sim­ple logo mark which visu­al­ly explains the cause with a call to action, a zero is built from hun­dreds of plus signs, with each plus rep­re­sent­ing the pow­er of indi­vid­ual dona­tions to make ZERO become a real­i­ty. UNICEF raised US$440,000 in one night. 176% high­er than their quar­ter-of-a-mil­lion-dol­lar goal and near­ly four times high­er than lead­ing fundrais­ing events pri­or. With this, a min­i­mum of 50,000 chil­dren will be treated.

I would summarize my experience with the Rice Creative team in two words: organic and authentic. I say organic because the concept did not happen overnight, as if there was an existing idea which was slightly customized. The idea emerged from multiple, in-depth, engaging discussions to truly understand UNICEF, our principles, goals, and challenges. I use authentic because from top to bottom, head to toe, the idea also emerged from within, from real passion and thoughtfulness. As a client, I could not be more thrilled with the team and most importantly, the end result for the Vietnamese children that we serve. — Lara Vu, Head of UNICEF HCMC Office and Private Sector Partnerships