Keep Hope Alive

Brief:
In Belgium, every year 1500 children are reported missing. Most of them are found quickly. Others remain missing for years and their missing posters start blending into the background. Child Focus, the Belgian Center for Missing Children, wanted to recapture the attention for these long-term missing children, because even after years every tip can lead to a breakthrough. Only if the whole country starts talking about these children again, the chance that possible witnesses will rise increases.

Solution & Cultural Context:
To keep hope alive, we literally brought the original posters of six long-term missing children to life. Using a 3D mask technique, we brought natural movement to the pictures, from eye movements and blinking to larger movements and facial quirks.
By adding these sudden movements to the original posters, people turned their heads and paid attention again. Turning these mostly ignored portraits into gripping confrontations.


Scale & Location:
The moving missing posters were spread in Belgium via hundreds of digital billboards in major train stations and subway stations. Child Focus (and every other organization for missing children) normally uses still posters to spread their messages. By choosing digital billboards and adding movement to the old pictures, we created something that's never been done before, using the strength of this medium.

Insights:
The moving missing posters were spread in Belgium via hundreds of digital billboards in major train and subway stations. By choosing digital billboards and adding movement to the old pictures, we created something that uses the strength of this medium. When passers-by were confronted with the posters, they were directed to a separate webpage for each missing child, where they could read more about the disappearances and share the search messages.