Illiteracy remains a global problem. Around staggering 750 million adults can’t read and write, most of which live in the countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, the number of people that are at least 15 years old that can read and write is very low. The fact is that everyone needs to work together to defeat this retrograde social epidemy. Still, if the government, individuals, and community organizations don’t get involved, the situation will remain the same – or get even worse.
So, what is one of the best ways to defeat illiteracy? Education. Empowering children to read is the best way to help them overcome this problematic inability. That is why, during this week’s #ThrowBrandThursday, we are focusing on The Literacy Foundation‘s (Fondation pour l’alphabétisation) amazing way of combating illiteracy. Together with creative agency SID LEE, the foundation decided to donate at least 200,000 books to underprivileged kids in Quebec so that they could access information with ease.
Now, it’s the way these books were donated that really caught our attention. So, let’s turn the page: to grab the attention of book lovers and encourage them to donate to the cause, the creative agency designed a series of bookmarks that are not like any other. Just to help you make an image of what it is like for the affected youngling, the agency asked those in need to donate their voices and faces first. What for? Just keep reading and you’ll find out!
The children created visual and audio signatures in their own cute way, which were then beautifully embedded on the bookmarks. These helpful gadgets were strategically placed in bookstores, where they doubled as invitations to the public, asking them to buy books for the kids and donate them in a special container. Once they placed a book in the box, the donator was greeted by an animated thank-you message by a specific child.
The campaign managed to get a lot of people talking and received a tremendous response: Over 100,000 books were donated, the campaign experienced a 1,038% increase in donations, and it acquired over 15,000,000 impressions. But most importantly, it got the youths reading, and that is the perfect recipe to combat illiteracy.
“The idea was to connect book lovers with children living in underserved neighborhoods. It becomes easier to donate a book when you’re already purchasing one for yourself. Not to mention that it’s always harder to say no when a cute kid is asking nicely,” said Maxime Paiement, Creative Director at Sid Lee.
It would be great to see such a campaign in other parts of the world, like East and South Asia, and North and West Africa, where researchers discovered that literacy actually sustained a boost in the last decades. Still, we bet that everyone would love to see the campaign in places where illiteracy still runs deep. Let’s help the world start discovering the beautiful side of reading!