Television campaign highlights fact that three people die each day due to shortage of donors

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2009/oct/30/organ-donation-tv-ad

The NHS is launching its first national television campaign to promote organ donation, highlighting the fact that three people who are in need of a transplant die each day due to a shortage of donors.

Breaking on TV tonight, the £3m marketing campaign, co-ordinated by the government advertising body the Central Office of Information, aims to get more people to sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register. Only 27% of the public have signed up.

The campaign features a healthy-looking boy watching TV on the couch with a member of his family. He then gets progressively more ill as the ad points out that if a loved one was ill we would donate immediately.

"By focusing on the gap between the number of us who say we would accept an organ if we needed one and the number who have actually joined the register, our campaign highlights the urgent need for those who believe in organ donation to act now," said the chief executive of NHS Blood and Transplant, Lynda Hamlyn.

The campaign, which runs until the end of March next year, also includes an online game, developed by PR firm Munro & Forster based on giving the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz a new heart.

Ad agency AMV BBDO was responsible for developing the campaign.