The Purpose Awards
As old style CSR initiatives are increasingly replaced by a desire to embed deeper purpose into the heart of organisations, The Purpose Awards recognises campaigns that use creative ideas to successfully further positive causes - recognising the brands, charities, NGOs and public bodies behind the campaigns.
We’ve picked out some of our favourite campaigns from this year’s shortlist below:
UNILAD: The Illegal Blood Bank
1 in 4 of us will depend on donated blood at some point in order to stay alive. The UK needs 200,000 new blood donors each year and yet millions of pints cannot be collected due to an outdated, discriminatory law against gay and bisexual men. UNILAD and Freedom To Donate decided to raise awareness about this law and pressurise the government to change, by opening The Illegal Blood Bank: the world’s first blood bank for gay and bisexual men, collecting ‘pints in protest’. They tested all the blood collected to the same medical standards as the UK national health service, and 100% of it was safe to use, showing that governments are ignoring millions of pints of safe, lifesaving blood with legislation based on bias, not science. This prompted the NHS to commit to investigate ‘individualised risk assessment’ going forwards.
Children’s Society: The Store of Modern Childhood
Featuring stab proof vests, self-hate notebooks and cyber bullying phone cases, The Store of Modern Childhood is not a normal store. The unsettling products are not for sale but rather represent the challenges children and young people face on a daily basis, including poverty, knife crime, bullying and sexual exploitation. The collection is based on the voices of overlooked children and their stories of feeling scared, ignored and unable to cope, and aims to shine a light on the harsh reality of being a youth in Britain today.
E.ON It’s time to clear the air
Air pollution kills one in twenty people in the UK, and has far reaching health implications for millions more. E.ON’s campaign aims to raise awareness of this invisible and often neglected issue by showing a world where air pollution particles are shockingly visible. With particle distribution denser closer to the ground, it highlights the significant risk posed to children in particular. As part of the same campaign, E.ON also erected a giant 5m high pair of transparent lungs in London, that darkened in real time throughout the day as London’s air quality deteriorated, highlighting the pervasive health risks.
Public Health England & Treatwell: Life Saving Wax
Every year 2600 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in England and almost 700 die from the disease. While routine screening is free on the NHS, it is at a 20-year low because women fear it will be painful or embarrassing. Yet while the numbers of screenings decrease, the number of women getting bikini wax treatments in the UK is rising. Utilising compelling insight which revealed 74% of women said they would listen to advice given by a beauty therapist, Treatwell & Public Health England trained up beauty therapists across the Treatwell network to change the conversation around cervical screening and help women see it as a potentially life-saving part of their routine. The campaign resulted in 100,000 additional cervical screening samples recorded over 3 months, demonstrating significant behaviour change.