My Role
Team
Thiru Yoganathan (Project Supervisor)
Peter Kawecki (Team Lead)
Research Team
Faiz J.
Mandalena C.
Celine T.
Fatema T.
Design Team
Kaustubh D.
Evie S.
Bayle D.
Kate K.
Timeframe
4 weeks ( Nov - Dec 2023)
Overview
The Australian Red Cross Lifeblood is a part of the Red Cross Society, focusing on the collection, testing, and distribution of life-saving blood and therapeutics.
Their new 5-year strategy aims to improve Australia’s health by increasing blood supplies, raising brand awareness and offering more health services.
Thus, the organisation needed an empathetic visual story shown through animated pitch to drive support for their proposition endorsement with the Red Cross Executive Board.
0.1
Lifeblood final animated pitch.
• CHALLENGE
THE CHALLENGE.
With their new strategy expanding beyond blood collection to potentially offer more health services, mainly through “A Movement of Donors”, “Essential to Health”, and “A Workforce of Champions”, the Executive Team needed to be provided with a persuasive vision of the possible services to justify further investment of time and effort into this proposition.
This raised several important questions:
1. What will the future of Lifeblood look like?
2. What services will Lifeblood offer and how will they benefit donors and non-donors?
3. How will Lifeblood collaborate with other healthcare providers, such as GPs?
4. How will lifeblood attract more donors?
• CONTEXT
The THREE PILLAR principle.
Abiding by core principles.
• USER RESEARCH
But what do Lifeblood's stakeholders want?
Peeking through the lense of their users.
Being a risk adverse organisation, large documents of research are their forte. However, much was assumed about what other parts of the healthcare system might think.
What they needed most was validating this research and ultimately demonstrating the strong customer-first approach in the messaging.
From our interviews with healthcare professionals, medical GP’s and active blood donors, our findings highlighted what they wanted to benefit from this new strategy.
• IDEATION
Flushing out the message.
Let’s workshop it — defining the message.
Being in a research intensive state, I worked with the design team to get started on ideation templates to quicken the storyboard synthesis.
Based on the data provided by Lifeblood and the new research findings from my team, I proposed 3x important workshop sessions that would effectively flush out the message for the animation.
Not only did I hone my ability to adapt and collaborate in a cross-functional team, I also fostered my growth as a leader responsible for guiding others and managing effective communication with the client.
Proper research and customer input is a blessing that highlights the clear problem space and illuminates the path to ideating effective solutions that work.
Leverage brand — Increase donations —Enable healthier lives.
With vast amounts of data at our disposal, I organised daily workshops to flush out all the similar groupings — ultimately realising there was just too much data to justify addressing in the animation,
I proposed to unanimously choose 4x themes that we felt stayed true to the 3 core pillars highlighted previously.
The following HMW statements would remain the core of the story:
Donation Access
HMW make donating blood more accessible and appealing to a wider range of people from different background and communities?
Retain Repeat Donations
HMW implement Preventative Health initiatives that increase brand awareness and visibility of Lifeblood in the health space?
Incentive
HMW further engage youth outreach through Lifeblood’s Preventative Health strategies and initiatives?
Connections between Donation/Blood
HMW create better incentive strategies to entice customers to not only donate, but to promote continuous donation culture?
1.0
'How Might We' statement ideation.
A story with conflict, resolution, and growth.
Having a structured set of statements and principles to follow paved the way to our next step; creating a story that would inspire and validate Lifeblood’s new strategy.
Our Affinity Mapping extracted 7x key themes that were mandatory in achieving a compelling story that would convince Lifeblood’s Executive Board:
Convenience & Access
How can the story display the convenience of donating blood?
Incentivise
How can the story create better incentive strategies to entice customers to donate and promote donation culture?
Diverse Audience
How can the story cater for and reach a more diverse/untouched demographic to donate blood?
Advocacy
How can the story promote advocation of the benefits and vast information gained from blood donation?
Retainment
How can the story effectively show the retainment of donors for life?
Commonalities
How can the story link the commonalities between blood donation and improved general health?
Presentation to Executives
How can the story effectively communicate the value and significance of a preventative health strategy, and it’s enhancements to both donor supply and improved health among Australians, to Lifeblood Executives?
2.0
Extensive 'HMW' card-sorting
• FINALISATION
Turning ideation mess to a clear solution.
Finding clarity amidst the chaos.
With so many ideas to choose from an otherwise messy ideation board, I proposed to further organise our new data into MVP’s of each target theme.
The result?
We were able to separate high impact ideas with visual clarity whilst lessening cognitive load from the mess of our Affinity Map and thus, speed up the storyboarding process.
From our selection of convenient locations that held high possibilities of incentivising potential donors, the Farmer’s market felt the strongest for providing a vibrant and warm community environment.
To incentivise, we needed to grab the users attention and drive home motivation. The message we really wanted to bring home for donors was donating blood could save a life and enable future health benefits.
The farmers market would also be a great location that houses a diverse community, including the LGBTQIA+ community.
We thought this could be a potential area of interest to promote Australia’s inclusion of plasma donation for LGBTQIA+, allowing anyone to donate plasma.
For the storyboard to promote an advocate mindset for potential donors, I believed it was vital that the animation prioritised helping users with a health assessment, regardless of whether they donate or not.
If Lifeblood could first help users with their problems by providing support and assistance, this service would positively incentivise them to be a part of a greater community and help others.
Advocation leads to retainment. We chose to show an altruistic sense of satisfaction by showing that donors are told their blood was used to help save a life.
Nothing better than knowing you helped someone. A true blue hero!
Health awareness would be shown through a blood analysis with skilled nurses or nutritionists, followed by a healthy diet.
Continue the cycle of a healthy and happier Australia by reinforcing a healthy lifestyle.
Finally, the goal of the animation was to connect with Lifeblood’s Executive Board.
Donors are given a second family that cares, and a community that will check up on your health and wellbeing.
• STORYBOARD
Let's donate!
Animation — the final stretch.
With only a few more days before the final presentation Alex Young and Lifeblood, the animation team used Animaker to collaboratively bring the animation pitch to life.
From writing the script for our characters, animating each segment of the final storyboard, to using AI-generation for background imagery and emotive voice overs, it would not have been possible without our daily workshops, working together to perfect the vision.
3.0
Finalised storyboard outline.
Introducing Ben — Lifeblood’s hero.
Ben - a hardworking individual - is encouraged by his caring wife, Mia, to visit a nurse at the Red Cross Lifecare stall at the local farmers market. The nurse recognises signs of stress and suggests Ben consult a general practitioner for a mental health care plan.
On his way home, Ben encounters a friend and rediscovers his love for football, reigniting a forgotten passion. Empowered by the support of his friend, Ben decides to prioritise his mental health. Post-treatment Ben revisits the doctor after six months. He expresses gratitude for the positive impact of psychologist sessions on his well-being, leading to reduced stress at work and an increase in active lifestyle.
4.0
Finalised storyboard.
• RETROSPECTIVE
