War Child Canada

Problems that exist far away are easy to ignore. To make Canadians (and the Canadian media) care about the plight of the 250,000 child soldiers fighting in armed conflicts around the world, War Child had to make it personal.

John St. was tasked with bringing the war home, and found a location outside of the city. “Camp Okutta” was a new kind of summer camp where Canadian children could experience the adventures of real child soldiers. Campokutta.com provided interested parents with information from activities to sleeping arrangements. John St. posted a video on YouTube and Facebook featuring cheerful counsellors guiding kids through minefields and other training exercises. Teams of counsellors handed out promotional materials in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

Instead of buying media, John St. banked on the shock value of the campaign to attract the attention of the mainstream press. Within days it was featured on CBC’s The National and was subsequently covered by all major national media and countless local outlets. The YouTube clip exceeded 100,000 hits, and traffic to War Child’s site increased from 400,000 hits a month to 1.5 million, with 82% of those coming from campokutta.com. Online donations more than doubled versus the previous year.

The campaign won awards across Canada, plus a One Show Bronze Pencil and Best Guerrilla Marketing Effort from Adweek.