Coins Of Hope

In Europe, every two minutes a child is reported missing. Some of them are found quickly, but others remain missing for years. Data showed that attention for older missing children’s cases had dropped significantly. The missing posters and social posts have become old news. Unjustly so, because previous cases have proven that even after years the right information can still provide a breakthrough. Child Focus, the Belgian Center for Missing Children, never gives up hope. They do everything it takes to help the families in their search and to get others involved. The objectives of the campaign were to express Child Focus’ hope for all missing children and to get everyone talking about them again. We wanted to give these children the attention they deserve.

We made 1 million 2 euro coins with the face of a missing child, instead of that of our king. Next to the portrait, the coins also showed the Child Focus website. We even used a live database: depending on which country you’re in, the most relevant cases are shown first.
The supporting campaign asked to spread hope by spending the coins. Targeted TV commercials referred to the product in the previous commercial, encouraging people to pay for it with the coins. We also used specific media targeted at people when they use currency: ATM screens, supermarket check-out screens, posters, cash trays and window stickers.
And we turned our 1 million coins into countless virtual ones, by asking people to share a picture, using #CoinsofHope. Or, if they didn’t have a Coin of Hope yet, by doing a ‘coin swap’ with any other coin on the campaign website.