To mark its launch, Pablo London encourages people to #BleedforEngland

To mark the launch of the new agency, Pablo London has created a national blood donation campaign for Give Blood and NHSBT, encouraging people to register to give blood for their country.

The campaign, which launches throughout England on September 18th, comprises of a breathtaking 30” film, four celebrity online films, press  & poster campaign and will feature during the biggest sporting event in the UK since
the Olympics, namely the Rugby World Cup.

As this epic event unfolds, the world will witness the dedication of athletes, so committed to their countries they are willing to bleed for them. This in stark contrast to the fact that just 3% of Brits really does bleed for their fellow countrymen by giving blood.

It is during times of big, inclusive sporting competitions that Britons feel most free to express their patriotism and love for their country. It’s the perfect time to overcome a key challenge for a charity like Give Blood; which is to make people care about strangers enough to give of their time (and blood!). This is particularly important as NHSBT receive fewer donations during a major sporting event.

Pablo and Give Blood NHSBT will ride this wave of national emotion and give the country an opportunity to show the same commitment as their rugby heroes (past and present) standing shoulder to shoulder with them to register to Bleed for England.

The idea came from a unique insight tool developed by Pablo called the Sports Panel. Devised by Ben Kay, Gareth Mercer and Mark Sng this allows the agency to work closely with athletes, coaches, back room staff and physiologists, in order to  develop insights that take people closer to sport.

The “Bleed for England” film, created by Pablo, working closely with award winning production company Squire, dramatises the importance of giving blood by showing a red rose (a symbol of England), being brought back to life from a dying bloom, dry and shrivelled. The rose transforms to full living beauty, as the blood begins to course through its veins; whilst the voice of Sir John Hurt tells us “less than 3% of people support England, in a way that matters, we need 100,000 new blood donors, to do something amazing and bleed of England.”

The online campaign features current England Rugby players: James Haskell, Dan Cole and Tom Croft, who gave up their day to substitute jobs with unsuspecting donors (as Rugby players can not give blood themselves during the season). Three films will be released in phases throughout September and October 2015.

The press and poster campaign features the blood of English Rugby World cup winners, including Jonny Wilkinson, Martin Johnson, Jason Leonard, Matt Dawson and Pablo’s very own Ben Kay. Demonstrating their commitment to their country once again, a small percentage of their blood (called a run on – usually used for testing) was mixed with ink to create another symbolic English Rose. The rose was created by artist David Bayo using a technique where the rose is painted in water, and a mixture of blood and ink is dropped into the art and spread throughout the
image to represent the flow of blood through a patients veins during a blood transfusion.

Many people will see the sporting events unfold this autumn but few will have chance to participate. Pablo believes in doing good work for good brands. We set ourselves the challenge of inspiring a nation to care enough about strangers to give their time and their blood to really get behind their country. It was important for us to practice what we preach and the team at Give Blood, Squire, Finish and Engine together with rugger buggers and members of the advertising community collaborated in the most enjoyable way to create a very special result.

Gareth Mercer,

Founder and Managing Director, Pablo

The campaign idea Pablo brought to us was superb. It tackles an important health issue at many levels. Through its core message of “#BleedForEngland” it simply lays out the need for new donors and then through dramatic imagery, emotional delivery and at times humour, it delivers the key proposition at many levels. I believe Pablo’s campaign will cut though some other great rugby campaigns and on a small budget will deliver a memorable campaign that will make a real difference to thousands of people’s lives.

Jon Latham,

Assistant Director, NHS Blood and Transplant

Pablo London worked closely with agency partners Squire, Finish, Cord and Simon Derviller photography, whom all donated their time, talent and energy to this project; and were supported by roster agencies ENGINE and 23 Red.
Also leading by example were advertising industry representatives including Peter Cowey (Oystercatchers), James Swift (Campaign), Tom Knox (IPA President), Paul Bainsfair (IPA Director General) and Tony Spong (AAR) who all donated blood for this donation campaign, together with members of the Pablo management team (Gareth Mercer, Tim Snape, Mark Sng, Peter Moulton, Claire Elworthy), the Give Blood Marketing team and Squire Studios production team (lead by JT).

Credits:

• Client: NHSBT Give Blood & Jon Latham
• Agency: Pablo
• Production Company: Squire
• Director: Simon Stock
• Creative Directors: Tim Snape & Chris Landy
• Creative Insight and Strategy: Gareth Mercer & Ben Kay
• Planning Director: Mark Sng
• Account Handler: Zoe Mitchell
• Producer: JT at Squire
• Post Production: Finish
• Grade: Paul Harrison
• Flame: Steve Murgatroyd
• CGI: Alaric Holberton
• Post Producer: Vittorio Giannini

Pablo London is an independent creative agency based in Shoreditch, which launched publicly on September 1st 2015. The agency started in beta format as “More”. Keeping under the radar they took a humble approach to building an agency from the grass roots up and a radical output by creating their own insight tools, collaboration techniques and developing rapid prototyping systems internally and with clients. The agency launched as Pablo from its findings and the success of recent campaigns for the likes of Adidas, Ferrero and Carlsberg.