Provocative ad campaign targets youth donors
April 20, 2009
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Theresa Boyle
HEALTH REPORTER
Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week has been kicked off in Ontario with a $1 million advertising campaign targeting youth, with the goal of getting more people to register to donate organs.
"It's about starting a movement among young people and creating a culture of organ and tissue donation in this province," Frank Markel, president of the Trillium Gift of Life Network, told a news conference this morning.
The advertising campaign is aimed at 15- to 24-year-olds, who are viewed as a receptive and influential audience when it comes to signing up on the donation registry and spreading the word to others, Markel explained.
"Every three days someone dies waiting for an organ transplant and it is our belief that this campaign will let young people know that they have to power to help save lives," he said.
The advertising campaign is based around the theme of recycling and uses a modified version of the international recycling symbol – a triangle made of arrows – inside of which is a heart.
On RecycleMe.org, the campaign's graphic and provocative website, you can click on various parts of a young man's body to see the organs inside. Click on the pancreas, for example, and you can learn that conditions such as diabetes can make a transplant of this organ necessary.
"With almost 1,700 Ontarians currently on the waiting list for a transplant, we have a responsibility to build awareness and education, especially among your youth," said Health Minister David Caplan.
The Trillium Gift of Life Network is a not-for-profit agency of the Ontario government, responsible for co-ordinating organ and tissue donation.
"Research has shown that organ and tissue donation simply not on the radar screen of most youth. This campaign is an important step toward creating greater awareness and increasing donor rates," Caplan said.
The 10-week campaign also includes ads on bus shelters and on construction site hoarding.
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