STOCKHOLM, May 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The British Red Cross are asking people to pledge their support to refugees by collectively 'changing their online status' across all social networks, instant messenger and email during Refugee Week (15th-21st June).

This is the first time that a charity has created an online movement to pledge support and tackle discrimination via online profiles.

Refugees arriving in the UK are often labelled as a group, saddled with the same "refugee" label and not seen as individuals. To highlight this issue, the British Red Cross are asking us to sacrifice our online identity by 'changing our online status profile' to the one uniform "label", to communicate the message of "looking beyond the label".

LBi have created a film and an innovative social media toolkit to make sharing this message and changing online profiles easy, compulsive, fun and impactful.

The campaign kicks off with a teaser film presented by Desperate Housewives star Dougray Scott. LBi and Agenda Collective created this viral film to broadcast the stories of refugees who have been helped by and are now helping the British Red Cross. The film will be released on 26th May at http://www.lookbeyondthelabel.org. This will be run in conjunction with an email marketing campaign calling everyone to 'change your online status'.

The social media toolkit will include a range of ways to change your status tailored to each of the major social networking and communication platforms including: profile pictures, instant messenger avatars, Twitter hashtag set ups, a bebo skin, icons, blog badges and email signatures. People can respond via Facebook, twitter, MSN, Yahoo!, bebo, blogs and email and share this message with everyone across all social networks and video sharing sites.

Dorothea Arndt, British Red Cross Head of Digital Media, said:

"Following the success of our digital campaigns last year, we have substantially increased our investment in online, and social media is now a key focus for this year's Refugee Week campaign."

The campaign will be the first designed to leverage the online youth supporter programme (Red Recruits) developed earlier this year by LBi for the British Red Cross. The Red Recruits will play a crucial role in using their social networks to spread the message amongst their peers.

The multi-media aspects of the campaign will be supported with a poll of public attitudes towards refugees, seeking to debunk negative connotations around those who seek sanctuary in the UK, to be targeted at print media, and Refugee Week events at Red Cross centres around the country.

http://www.lookbeyondthelabel.org http://www.redcross.org.uk

For further information or interview requests please contact: Sarah Van Praagh sarah.vanpraagh@lbi.com, +44-7974217812, Mark South msouth@redcross.org.uk, +44-7982017868

SOURCE LBI International AB

Back to top