A Truck Full of Blood Hits the Streets to Raise Awareness About a Troubling Issue

The film for this campaign illustrates a shocking reality: it opens with a man recalling taking his mother to the ER and being called upon to donate blood for her. But when the hospital found out he was gay, it rejected his contribution. In Brazil, men who have had sexual relations with other men in the past twelve months are legally banned from donating blood, causing the country to go without potential life-saving reserves.

To shine a light on this issue, agency Africa and the LGBT rights group All Out conceived the eye-opening "Wasted Blood" campaign. The stunt sent a truck filled with hundreds of blood bags through the streets of Sao Paulo. It carried the message, "Brazil wastes a truckload of blood every day because of pure prejudice" and directed passersby to the site wastedblood.com. In three differently languages, the site invites gay and bisexual men to join a virtual "donor queue" in an effort to illustrate just how much blood is going wasted without their donations.

Previously, Saatchi & Saatchi New York created a humorous campaign starring actor Alan Cumming addressing the same issue here in the States for GLAAD.