“When donating blood, everybody wins, including the donor!”. This is the message sent by the 400 women who gathered to cheer in the Gallery for Life, on March 28, at the National Arena, at the Romania-Belarus football match, in an unprecedented activation carried out by Donorium in partnership with the Romanian Football Federation.
It’s not a secret that Romanian hospital are always running low while the demand is sky-high. Since blood donation would close this gap, while offering direct health benefits for the donors themselves, women wanted to urge men to become blood donors. Donation leads not only to saving lives, but also helps keep donors healthy. It’s a double win that few are aware of.
In the stands, the show began earlier than on the field: before the start of the EURO 2024 qualifiers, the Gallery for Life sang an anthem. The women thus urged their husbands, brothers or sons to donate and prolong their lives, in order to enjoy more moments together. Gabriela Atanasov, the composer of the anthem together with Horia Stan and Dani Ionescu, was the gallery lead. The women waved scarves with the message “Donate and Save” and created an atmosphere like a real gallery. The lyrics were projected onto the cube of the National Arena so that your audience could join and sing along. The campaign was created and implemented by the agency v8.
“We wanted to convey the message of encouraging donation in a different way. We all know that patients in hospitals need blood, but few know how many benefits the gesture has for donors. Although they could donate 5 times a year, unlike women, who can do it 4 times a year, Romanian men stay away from donation centers. The match was the ideal opportunity to have an audience made up of men, and we hope that the Gallery for Life will convince you to donate”, said Adina Stănescu, Creative Director of v8.
The Donorium campaign, carried out in partnership with the Romanian Football Federation, aims to encourage more people to make a habit of donating blood. The data show that 57% of all deaths registered at the national level are caused by cardiovascular diseases, men being the most affected, and donating blood reduces the risk of developing these problems. Moreover, a donor can monitor their health state more closely, being clinically assessed with every visit to the donation centers. The Donorium app can be downloaded from here.
“We hope that the energy of the Gallery for Life has been transmitted to the whole stadium and we are glad to be part of this vital cause. The link between football and the cause of blood donation, promoted by Donorium, is a natural one, because we meet on a common platform of values. We aim for stadiums to become places where we hear not only chants for the teams playing, but also chants that support good causes.
FRF wants to develop long-term partnerships, which support, throughout all our activities, social responsibility initiatives, such as blood donation “, said Florin Șari, FRF Public Policy and Social Responsibility Manager.
The sports world joined this double-impact campaign through messages of support on social media. CSM Bucharest and the club’s teams have amplified the online campaign and supported the initiative in the next period as well, thus emphasizing the need to donate blood and the import of activation of this type.
“We were glad that this campaign was met with enthusiasm. Both our partners and the clubs and individuals contacted to get our message to the largest possible audience have responded positively and we are optimistic about this endeavor. The Donorium application should be on all mobile phones in order not to remind you how important it is to donate and to schedule this easily”, said Dragoș Mutașcu, President of the Smart Society Association, Founder of Donorium.