Red Cross Shows Monetary Value Of Emotions

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Wunderman Thompson have released a campaign to generate support for the work done by the charity in Afghanistan.

The ICRC have worked in Afghanistan for 30 years and the campaign, 'Trade in Your Emojis for Dollars', seeks to highlight how it remains operational there working in tandem with the Afghan Red Crescent Society.

A data-led film, ‘React For Real’, is inspired by the timeless expression, ‘If I had a dollar for every time…’, and demonstrates the potential monetary value of reactions on social media.

The team behind the work conducted a data analysis of social media reactions as well as research on real-time needs in Afghanistan for ICRC. Anonymous data was gathered, studied, and analysed to highlight the emojis and hashtags that were most commonly used in response to this crisis.


Ewan Watson, head of campaigns, media relations and content, from the ICRC said: “Millions of people turned to social media to show their solidarity and support to the Afghan people. We wanted to show how powerful that collective concern could be on the lives of Afghans if we had a dollar for every social media post. We hope this film encourages people to support our work in Afghanistan as winter sets in and families are struggling to have the basics they need to survive.”  


Faysal Abdul Malak, managing director of Wunderman Thompson UAE added: “The urgency of the cause meant that the film had to be created in record time and with a bare minimum budget. However, despite the low production costs, the team used powerful imagery and statements to make a lasting impression on the viewer. We’ve proved that emotional appeal does not always have to rely on a high spend – you just need a good idea, a passionate team and a brilliant client, all of which we have in droves.”



Wunderman Thompson Dubai worked together with teams in Sydney, Seattle, London and New York to create the work, which will be launched across 17 countries in three languages.