Afrika Now!

Solid teamwork behind hectic fundraising success

Uitch Iscratch and Duckling only had eight days on their hands when they agreed to produce the trailers and spots for the big fundraising event “Afrika Nu!”. But they did it, and the 25 films played an important part in the success, says the chief strategist of the campaign, Sune Bang from the Danish communications agency Kommunikationsbureauet København.

Usually you have about six months to prepare a large national fundraising campaign, but only two weeks were allocated in the case of the recent fundraising event “Africa Now!”. This resulted in a hectic process in which the film production faced particular time pressure.

- We got a call on a Tuesday and they asked us if we wanted to help. We were very interested, and luckily our flexible structure allows us to run unexpected projects with aggressive deadlines. I could tell right away that trailers and spots played an important part in reaching out to people in the Danish homes, and we said yes without hesitation, explains Casper C. Rasmussen, producer of “Afrika Nu!” at Duckling.

The fundraiser became a success especially thanks to numerous cross-organisational teamwork efforts. The Danish TV channels TV2 and DR had an unusual broadcasting collaboration, 12 relief agencies worked together to collect funds, and Kommunikationsbureauet København teamed up with Uitch Iscratch and Duckling on the production and post-production of the films, respectively.

In only eight working days, the team managed to produce 20 spots and four trailers. It would normally take months to transform ideas into moving pictures.

- It was incredible that it could actually be done. It all came together. There seemed to be a kind of symbiosis between us, København and Duckling. And you could say Johan got off to a fast start,” says Mads Nørfelt Marstrand, Creative Producer at Uitch Iscratch, with reference to the company’s new instructor Johan von Bogenberg Stahl.

- When you produce almost 25 different appeals and trailers on such short notice, you need highly professional people who really know their craft and understand the essence of the project right from the start. There is no time for any detours and no margin for error,” says Sune Bang, CEO, Kommunikationsbureauet København. He believes that the films had a direct effect on the fundraising results:

- The campaign films were a crucial element in the success because they inspired so many people to contribute to the fundraiser.

"Afrika Nu!" collected DKK 111 million to make it the second-largest Danish fundraising success ever, topped only by the combined fundraiser for Haiti and Africa in 2010. The TV show had an average of 1.22 million viewers and the call centre received more than 12,000 calls.

In addition to Kommunikationsbureauet København, Duckling and Uitch Iscratch, the sound studio Supersonic also contributed.

For more information, please contact:

Duckling
Casper C. Rasmussen
2161 5090

Uitch Iscratch
Mads Nørfelt Marstrand
2221 7858

Kommunikationsbureauet København
Sune Bang
4030 0161