Client
World Health Organization (WHO)

Category
Animation
Video
Social media
Design

Deliverables
Video
Social media
Campaign website
Posters

Partnering for prevention: Collaborating with content creators for World Drowning Prevention Day

Background

Proactive prevention over fear.

For World Drowning Prevention Day 2024, the World Health Organization tasked Rooftop with creating a campaign that raised awareness about drowning risks without relying on scare tactics. Instead, we focused on proactive prevention and brought content creators on board to help emphasise the message.

 

Challenge

Balancing awareness and engagement.

Rooftop had six weeks to ideate, create and roll out the campaign assets, including translations into multiple languages. One of the initial challenges was finding the right tone to both engage audiences and share life-saving information. We also needed to identify content creators who were passionate about drowning prevention and aligned with WHO’s mission.

Solution

Visual storytelling supported by authentic, heartfelt messaging from content creators.

Our team of conceptors, copywriters, designers, art and video directors worked together to create a comprehensive campaign that included video, website and social media assets.

The Result

Reaching Millions with #DrowningPrevention.

Between 22 July 2024 – 1 Aug 2024, #DrowningPrevention was mentioned nearly 3300 times on social media channels and digital outlets, in 40 languages.

The Reel:

In 2023, Rooftop produced the World Drowning Prevention Day hero video, which was incorporated into the 2024 campaign as the message still resonated powerfully with the target audiences.

However, to support the social media strategy, Rooftop proposed an additional video Reel that could be shared on all social platforms.

As a visual ‘hook’ the video showed everyday activities from the point of view above and below water. We used a special camera housing so our videographer could film the shots at the same time.

The reel depicted five scenes that began with a serene or even playful moment, but also showed the potential drowning risk at the same time. Each scene emphasised the fact that drowning could happen in an instant. The outcome of each scene was left unresolved, urging viewers to read the caption to learn how they could potentially save a life.

The looping nature of the short Reel, combined with the caption as the main source of information, helped boost its visibility through social media algorithms.

Content creators:

Through extensive research and data gathering, Rooftop tested several insights and messages with target audiences to help identify the ideal content creators to help support the campaign.

We selected three core creators including:

Nicole Hughes

Her heartbreaking personal message about losing her son to drowning impacted millions, and was a cornerstone of the campaign.

James Gibson

The former Olympic swimmer and coach shared water safety tips to protect children from drowning.

TheWaterbabyFamily

A programme focused on providing short, helpful tips for parents on teaching water safety to toddlers around pools.

Each content creator tailored their message to their specific audience, but also included the five key safety tips promoted throughout the campaign.

Social media assets:

Rooftop developed four interactive posts for Instagram, including quizzes and polls to encourage user engagement. We also created several static posts that included the five key safety tips in the post copy to reinforce the campaign’s message:

👀 Supervise children and don’t look away when they’re near water. 👀

🦺 Use safety equipment like life jackets and make sure they’re in place before going out on a boat 🛶

🏊‍♂️Learn to swim, or if you can’t swim, stay away from the water. ❌

🌧️ Check the weather conditions, the depth of the water and the strength of the current before entering the water.☀️

🚫 Don’t drink alcohol near water, it dulls your senses and can cause fatal accidents near water.

Poster assets:

Rooftop furtermore developed three A4 sized posters in various languages including, English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.

The Reel garnered

VIEWS

Likes

Shares

Content creators generated

VIEWS

Likes

Shares

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