The archive · Public & Social · Marketing decision · 2025
King Faisal's 'Strangers' links eight saved lives to one organ donor
A three-minute film shows strangers living on through one donor's gift, lifting organ donation from procedure to legacy.
King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre
What it had to solve
King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre is one of the region's leading transplant centres, and organ donation in its market is a topic most people prefer not to confront. The hospital wanted the conversation to feel human rather than procedural — not an awareness lecture about transplantation, but a reminder that one person's decision can leave time, hope and a future to others.
How it works
Organ donation is one of those decisions everyone supports in principle and avoids in practice, and King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre wanted to move it from a medical topic to a human one. Its idea was simple: we live on through what we give.
Publicis Middle East's film 'Strangers' opens on eight people going about their lives in different places — no dramatic plot, no statistics. As the film unfolds, it becomes clear what connects them: each was saved by the same single donor. The three-minute-44-second piece deliberately withholds the twist until the viewer has already invested in the strangers' stories.
The restrained storytelling worked. The hospital reported a 98% view-through rate, with viewers watching the film to its end, and 100% positive sentiment across the 23 markets it reached. The campaign ended with a call to register as a donor, and the work took recognition at the Loeries 2025 awards, including a Bronze in online film.
Why it lands
- Following eight strangers before revealing their shared donor made the scale of one gift tangible without ever lecturing the audience.
- The hidden connection gave the film a quiet mechanic of discovery, so the message landed as a realisation rather than a claim.
- No explicit procedure talk kept the audience from switching off, letting the human stakes carry the entire argument.
- Ending on a registration link converted the emotional moment into an action the viewer could take in the same sitting.
What it did
The quiet approach held attention: the campaign reported a 98% view-through rate, with viewers watching the full three minutes and 44 seconds, and 100% positive sentiment across the 23 markets it reached. The film was recognised at the Loeries 2025 awards, including a Bronze in the online film category for King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre.
What you can take
When people avoid a subject because it means loss, reframe it as continuity: show what keeps living because someone gave.
Since then
'Strangers' was released in March 2025 as King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre's campaign for organ transplantation, with results that made the case for quiet storytelling: a 98% view-through rate on a film over three minutes long and uniformly positive sentiment across 23 markets. The work carried recognition at the Loeries 2025 awards, including a Bronze in online film, and became part of the hospital's effort to strengthen its voice in transplantation by focusing on the meaning behind the procedures.
Sources
- This Film Opens Up a Quiet, Powerful Conversation on Organ Donation
- #Loeries2025 Night 2 | All the winners
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