The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2019
Berger Paints turns Pakistan's truck art into missing-child posters — 3 found in 4 weeks
Instead of celebrities, Berger Paints painted missing children on Pakistan's decorated trucks — 1,015 calls and three recoveries in four weeks.
Berger Paints Pakistan
What it had to solve
Pakistan's goods trucks carry elaborate painted art, often portraits of celebrities, and travel every corner of the country. Thousands of children go missing each year and are moved to remote areas that newspapers, radio and television never reach, so ordinary missing-person appeals cannot find them.
How it works
Every year thousands of children go missing in Pakistan, and recovering them is hard because they are quickly moved to remote areas where newspapers, radio and television do not reach. Berger Paints and BBDO Pakistan noticed that one medium does travel those roads: the country's goods trucks, whose elaborate painted decoration — flowers, animals, calligraphy and portraits of celebrities — is a cherished folk art.
The campaign replaced the usual celebrity portraits with the last photograph of a missing child, painted in the same truck-art style together with details and the helpline number of NGO Roshni Helpline. Artist and anthropologist Samar Minallah Khan led the truck artists, and the vehicles set off across Pakistan as moving appeals, carrying the child's face into villages and routes that no commercial media reach.
The results came fast. In the first week the helpline took 313 calls from across the country; after four weeks it had received 1,015 calls and three missing children had been found. Dubai Lynx 2019 awarded Grands Prix in Outdoor, Print & Outdoor Craft, Design and Direct, and Spikes Asia 2019 added golds in Brand Experience & Activation, Outdoor, PR and Print & Outdoor Craft.
Why it lands
- The insight matched medium and problem: missing children end up in areas no media reaches, and painted trucks are the one canvas that goes there.
- It built on an existing cultural habit instead of inventing attention: people already stop to read truck art, so each portrait had an audience before it began.
- Every truck was a durable, moving poster with a working action — a helpline number — not just awareness, and calls began arriving within days.
- The craft came from the community itself, with local truck artists and an anthropologist, which respected the art form and made the intervention believable.
What it did
Within the first week the helpline received 313 calls from all over Pakistan; after four weeks it had taken 1,015 calls and three missing children had been recovered. Dubai Lynx 2019 gave the work Grands Prix in Outdoor, Print & Outdoor Craft, Design and Direct, and Spikes Asia 2019 added golds in Brand Experience & Activation, Outdoor, PR and Print & Outdoor Craft.
What you can take
Find the thing that already travels where your message must reach: truck art's built-in audience and mobility made a paint brand the medium, not the message.
Since then
Truck Art Childfinder launched in January 2019 with portraits painted on goods trucks. Within a week the Roshni helpline had received 313 calls from all parts of Pakistan; after four weeks the count reached 1,015 calls and three missing children had been recovered. The campaign then won four Grands Prix at Dubai Lynx 2019 — Outdoor, Print & Outdoor Craft, Design and Direct — and collected golds at Spikes Asia 2019 in Brand Experience & Activation, Outdoor, PR and Print & Outdoor Craft.
Sources
- Truck Art Childfinder — 2019 Winners & Shortlists, Art Direction Grand Prix
- Campaign Spotlight: Berger Paints and BBDO Pakistan/Impact BBDO Locate Missing Pakistani Children through Elaborate Truck Art
- Spikes Asia 2019: BBDO Pakistan Named Amongst Top 3 APAC Agencies of the Year at Spikes
- Dubai Lynx announces MENA's most creative campaigns and people of 2019
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