Is your defibrillator connected?

A new life saving initiative

In 2020, The BHF, The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, Resuscitation UK and St John Ambulance collaborated to bring to life the concept of a difib network – led by The BHF. The issue? Tens of thousands of privately owned difibs, and defibs owned by the council or local government are invisible in times of need. This means that in the event of a crisis, you could be within feet of a defib and have no way of knowing, which is a problem not only for the public, but first responders and 999 services too.

My concepts for this work were presented to key stakeholders and c-suite at the respective partners. Concepts which led with The BHF branding, designed as a flexible design system which meant that we would speak to people on a national, and local level. The idea was a simple, suggestive computer circuit board, with a key defib graphic that was represented as a single processor chip that could be moved around, from region to region.

The creative spanned a creative campaign, creative brand toolkit, social content, partnership content, POS, awareness campaigns, digital and UX on The BHF website and more – with huge reach in The BHFs extensive network of partners and businesses that are excited to join up, and register defibrillators.

The Circuit is a website that acts as a defib registration, that makes information relating to access, hours of access, ownership and location all available to emergency services. The call to action asked the public, or owner of a defib to register it, so that it can be found quickly. To date, having spoken with the leads and clients responsible at The BHF, this campaign has saved tens of lives – real lives, impacted by cardiac arrest. I’m super proud to have been part of this campaign and to see it in action today and into the foreseeable future.

Other concepts included a disruptive campaign that would see content ‘missing’, to act as a metaphoric nudge about the issues at hand. Through digital, we would strip images, and replace them with accessibility text that explained the missing features. Whilst all concepts were really well received, the concept of a circuit was too explicit, and in turn, best explained the themes required in the campaign creative.