On Monday, December 16^th, the readers of The Holmes Report, the PR industry’s leading news site, voted on their favourite PR-campaign of the decade. The winner was the Norwegian campaign the «Born again»-Simulator from 2012. It competed against other renowned campaigns such as «Like a girl» for P&G Always and «Watson Jeopardy Challenge» for IBM. 

“We are very excited and proud that «Born Again» has been voted the best PR campaign of the decade. It was a really good idea then, and it still is, even now seven years after the launch. Our goal was to spread knowledge about Norwegian aid work, which we succeeded in, says Senior Communications Director Marit Hverven in Norad.

World’s best in 2013

The campaign was developed by Gambit Hill+Knowlton and Dekode, in close cooperation with Norad, to bring awareness of Norwegian aid work to young people. On the website gjenfodt.no visitors could have their Facebook timeline instantly “reborn” to get a glimpse of what their life would be like if they had been born in a developing country like Malawi, Vietnam or Brazil. Factors like education, child mortality, war and natural disasters as well as music, videos and memes were used to tell a personal story about the effects of aid work. In 2013 it was named the best campaign in the world by SABRE Awards. 

«Born Again» really put H+K Norway on the map as a creative agency. Vi dared to think new and differently around a big and complicated topic, which is something we have brought with us in the way we solve communication challenges today. As Creative Director it’s especially cool to see that we are able to compete against some of the best ad- and communications agencies in the world. We are incredibly proud that clients and colleagues from around the world have voted for our campaign”, says Scott Allan, Creative Director at Gambit H+K. 

Paved the way for future campaigns

The content in the “reborn” timelines were generated using statistics, movies, news and the results of Norwegian aid work, but also made personal with photos and music videos linked to the different countries. During the campaign period, more than 200.000 young people generated new timelines, among them famous Norwegians like Crown Prince Haakon.

“This was one of the first digital campaigns that utilized Facebook’s user interface to tell a creative story, and in this way, it paved the way for social media campaigns around the world. The win also proves that the best ideas stay relevant for a long time”, says Allan.

You can still visit gjenfodt.no and be born again. Some of the content on the page might not work as intended.