Red Cross promotes humanity award

Hong Kong - The Red Cross has launched a campaign to promote its first Hong Kong Humanity Award aimed at recognising individuals who displayed acts of compassion as well as to raise awareness of the spirit of humanity.

The campaign developed by David Communications comprises of three versions featuring local people as famous humanitarians. One ad portrays a man as Ghandi helping an elderly man to wash his body with the message "the modest action of one person affects the lives of many".

Another ad features a man draped with a sheet resembling the head scarf of Mother Teresa grasping a hand from the top of a building to demonstrate protecting human life with the message "good people can be of any gender, generation or background".

To demonstrate respect for human dignity, a lady carries a lamp similar to Florence Nightingale as she vists a homeless man living under a bridge with the message "the greatest care starts close to home".

"The ads are able to build emotional bonds with our target audience in a very untraditional way. This level of creativity is rarely seen in traditional charity ads,"Wilson Wong, deputy secretary general for the Hong Kong Red Cross said.

"I believe this campaign will not only help us to recruit nominations for the Award, but also raise overall awareness and understanding of humanity among the general public".

"Our team has turned a traditional charity campaign into a creative, but yet emotional and meaningful one,"Royce Yuen, chairman for Ogilvy Group, Hong Kong said.