Creative Director James Hudson and Creative Rhys Hughes from Elvis reveal how they realised a complex and emotive campaign for LADBible. The Illegal Blood Bank facilitated gay and bisexual men to give blood and protest the blanket ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood in the United Kingdom, ultimately leading to consultation on a change in the law.

The team set up a bloodbank which drew and tested the blood of gay and bisexual men – found to be 100% usable – which was then displayed in central London locations including ouside the Houses of Parliament and Carnaby Street.

Inspired by the success of its 2017 Trash Isles campaign, LADBible approached Elvis to come up with a similar project which would utilise its enormous reach in ways that would improve society. The first thing that Hudson and Hughes did was to research what was important to the LADBible audience and found the result was ‘a more equal society’.

“We fell upon this thing about a quarter of us needing blood and this discriminatory ban and we both agreed that this felt like the right thing to do. That this was something we could and should do something about,” says Hudson.

Once the client agreed to the campaign the long process of realising began. What the team needed was a medical partner who could collect, store and test the donated blood to an NHS standard. The team not only had to ensure the project reached the most people possible but also that the location, and safety of donors and staff, was protected. They not only achieved this but worked it into the campaign.

“We were pixelating faces, we were using almost documentary-style bodycams to give that kind of secret camera feeling and all of that contrasted really weirdly with this authentic, clinical side of it,” explains Hughes. “On the one you had a really professional, really legit clinical set up and on the other hand… Why is this illegal? They played off each other quite nicely.”

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