Big Sisters act fast

DDB was tasked with the challenge of raising awareness and increasing volunteer recruitment for non-profit Big Sisters in Vancouver by eliminating the misconception that donating time with the organization requires a significant commitment - the top reason why most women choose not to sign up.

To demonstrate how little time it takes to make a profound impact on a young girl's life, DDB created a campaign comprised of the shortest messages possible in any given media: seven-second TV ads, five-second radio ads, tweets and small-space print ads.

Radio and TV ads were just long enough to feature a Big Sister giving a young girl advice, reinforcing the fact that being a Big Sister may take less time than you think. Print ads featured two side-by-side illustrations of a young girl and her Big Sister engaged in an activity. The first is an intricate drawing that appears to have taken a great amount of time to do, while the other is a simple stick figure sketch.

Big Sisters' website saw a 64% increase in traffic to the volunteer page set up for the campaign, resulting in the site's highest number of visitors since its inception, while a tweet-a-thon supporting the campaign reached an audience of more than 130,000 people. Big Sisters also saw a spike in volunteer applications during the month of May and the highest number of volunteer inquiries since last September.