The NGV’s The Rigg Design Prize 2022 campaigns: Leo Burnett’s ‘Can creativity make you bleed?’

Leo Burnett has unveiled a real-time experiment in the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) to find out which emotion will get people to donate more blood, as part of the Rigg Design Prize 2022 exhibition.

The NGV challenged Leo Burnett, along with seven other shortlisted Australian ad agencies, to showcase the power of creativity and its potential to accelerate positive social, cultural, economic or cultural change.

Each agency was tasked with using the same five channels to communicate their idea – social media, a billboard, street furniture, a street poster and a digital screen.

Leo Burnett’s “Can creativity make you bleed?” campaign focuses on a specific human emotion on each channel, aimed at convincing people to donate blood. The idea is to see which emotion will be most effective in motivating people to do good.

Will it be ‘joy’, ‘anger’, ‘sadness’, ‘fear’ or ‘disgust’?

Installation 1 – Creativity has the potential to make people feel ‘joy’
In this idea, the true story of donor, Dave Roberts, is told on social media. His plasma donations contribute towards saving 50,000 babies every year and is an example of the wonderful impact a person’s blood can have.

Installation 2 – Creativity has the potential to make people feel ‘sadness’
On a billboard, Leo Burnett juxtaposes heart-wrenching stories of loss with empty blood bags. The creative demonstrates how giving blood also gives people more time with their loved ones.

Installation 3 – Creativity has the potential to make people feel ‘anger’
Using a street poster, the idea is to elicit anger by comparing the numbers of blood donors to other far less positive groups in Australia, like anti-vaxxers, and how they have more numbers than blood donors. And that should make a person’s blood boil.

Installation 4 – Creativity has the potential to make people feel ‘fear’
Using street furniture, the agency highlights the terrifying reality of what happens when our community runs out of blood.

Installation 5 – Creativity has the potential to make people feel ‘disgust’
On a digital screen, a story is told of a niche group of ‘blood drinkers’ to demonstrate a disgusting, alternative way to share a pint of blood with someone.

Once a person has viewed an installation, they can scan a QR code to confirm the emotion used in that creative motivated them the most to give blood. A dynamic screen has also been installed to allow audiences to view which emotions people are voting for in real time.

Says Andy Fergusson, national executive creative director, Leo Burnett: “Leo Burnett once said that ‘creativity has the power to transform human behaviour’. So we saw this brief as an opportunity to prove the potential of creativity, by actually motivating people to do something tangible and positive. Hopefully, we’ll not only inspire people to give blood, we will also gain valuable data on how we can best motivate them. It’s like an incredibly elaborate focus group.”

Now in its ninth edition, the triennial Prize is Australia’s highest national accolade for contemporary design bestowed by an Australian public gallery and seeks to profile a different field of design practice every three years. This year’s Prize is the first major exhibition of advertising and communication design in the NGV’s history.

The Rigg Design Prize 2022 will be on display from 7 October 2022, to 29 January 2023 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square, Melbourne, Australia. The winning campaign will be announced on 13 October.