We produced a social media campaign that also generated newspaper and TV coverage for VSO. We invited creative influencers to ‘draw’ stories of health workers in Sierra Leone. Fronted by award-winning illustrator, Chris Riddell.

Social media campaign – creating compelling content

Charity VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) asked us to create a social media campaign that would drive newspaper and television coverage in order to raise funds for their work in Sierra Leone.

In particular, VSO wanted to focus on health worker Andrew Sesay, 34, and his life-saving work with mums and babies.

Audience engagement

We wanted the audience to walk in Andrew’s shoes and to bring the story of frontline health care in Sierra Leone directly into the audience’s front room.

We wanted the storytelling to capture their hearts and minds.

We created a social media campaign called #DrawingBreath and recruited children’s laureate and award-winning illustrator Chris Riddell to front the campaign.

From pencil to paper (and everything wonderful in-between) we united artist influencers to create and then share stories of VSO health workers making real change in Sierra Leone.

Concept

Fieldcraft Studios created two short time-lapse films about dramatic real-life events in Sierra Leone for this social media campaign.

For the first film, Chris Riddell drew the dramatic story of VSO health worker Andrew.

The story unfolds as Andrew is summoned in the middle of the night to help a mother struggling to give birth.

When he reaches her it’s too dark for him to see what he is doing.

Chris then draws a solar light into the image, along with the cost, starkly illustrating for the audience the simple, cost-effective items that would make it easier for Andrew to help mums and babies.

Watch the film

Drawing stories

The story continues in the second film as Chris draws the story of Fatu, a mother whose baby Andrew delivered by torchlight.

Influencer marketing

We created an influencer outreach campaign where we asked artists to create paintings, illustrations and gifs bringing to life the stories of Andrew and Dr Padma, a VSO volunteer doctor also working in Sierra Leone.

The social media LIVE event

The grand finale of our social media campaign was a unique Facebook live broadcast event where we connected Andrew in Binkola, Sierra Leone with Chris Riddell and our team in the UK.

Phone and internet connection can be very difficult in rural Sierra Leone, but WhatsApp is often more reliable.

With no budget to send Fieldcraft Studios physically to the field to produce a live event we came up with this innovative solution – Andrew would use WhatsApp to send us photographs while he worked in a clinic for mums and babies.

As the images arrived from Sierra Leone illustrator Chris Riddell then drew what was happening – LIVE – from his studio in Brighton.

With a VSO expert on hand to give context to the images and chat with Chris whilst he drew. We broadcast the whole event live via Facebook.

Your live broadcast was utterly fantastic.

Lucy Grey, social media editor, The Independent newspaper – our media partner

Media coverage

We secured The Independent newspaper as the media partner for the live broadcast and they hosted it on their Indy100 Facebook page.

Our social media campaign also generated traditional media coverage including the BBC South East lunchtime and evening news and numerous radio and print newspaper interviews.

Behind the scenes

Watch our behind the scenes film with Chris Riddell.

Get crafty and work with us. Drop us a line about your project.