With the annual performances from co-founder Alicia Keys and a roster of other top-flight musicians—previous participants have included Justin Timberlake, Youssou N’Dour, David Bowie, and Bono—it's understandable that some guests might lose sight of the fact that Keep a Child Alive's annual Black Ball is first and foremost a fund-raiser. So to drive home its message and encourage attendees to donate, the nonprofit simplified the design of the event on September 30, and used almost every aspect of the decor to communicate its mission. Key to all of this was the new campaign conceived by ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day, dubbed "Buy Life," which features a bar code that, when scanned on a smartphone, directs potential donors to a donation site.
"People are there for a great evening and to enjoy themselves, but they have to understand why we're really there—or otherwise, what's the bloody point?" said Keep a Child Alive creative director Earle Sebastian, with a laugh. The H.I.V./AIDS organization opted to embed the campaign's bar codes and Keep a Child Alive's mission statement into the event's design. Sebastian and special events coordinator Danielle Spitzer headed the internal team, collaborating with Empire Entertainment and Amanda Davis of British design and production company AD Events International for the 750-person affair at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
"We think people want to donate, but the ways in which they can donate are always awkward," said Sebastian. "There's an immediacy to the issue, and we thought there should be an immediacy to how people can donate." In this instance, that translated to stamping the bar code on a number of different surfaces—the step-and-repeat, the tickets guests were given to exchange for gift bags at the end of the night, inside the program, and even enlarged on the facade of the bars.
"We used the mission statement to show guests what we do and to move them and the bar codes as a call to action. We made sure the bar codes were placed throughout the space, even within the centerpieces on the dining tables," Sebastian said.
To provoke an emotional response that, as Sebastian put it, "didn't necessarily preach or dictate," the organizers turned the cocktail area into an art gallery of sorts. The mission statement became poetry written on the wall, the slogans used in the campaign were presented in neon lights, and the number of children affected by H.I.V./AIDS in Africa and India were represented in a mountain of dolls that served as the focal point of the space. Keep a Child Alive even enlisted Thierry Guetta—a.k.a. Mr. Brainwash, one of the subjects of recent street-art documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop—to create artwork in the venue's lobby.
A similar amount of thought was put into other components, from the lyrical content of the music played during cocktails and the songs sung by performers Sade, Jay-Z, and Janelle Monáe, to auction items and a short speech by Deepak Chopra. "Everything had a purpose, and everything was related to the issue," said Sebastian. "The auction was great, but not everyone can afford the items [like the trip to India, valued at $26,000], so we had a pledge afterward, which was for a wonderful piece of jewelry—silver dog tags with a Gandhi quote on them—that went for $1,000 each. We asked people in the audience to stand up if they wanted to pledge. Half the room stood up, and I nearly cried."
Although the Black Ball hosted fewer guests than last year, the event took in $2.4 million, the same amount raised in 2009.
