The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2021
MND NZ sold David's unusables on TradeMe, making every auction a lesson on the disease
For MND awareness month, David Seymour sold the belongings his disease had made unusable — each listing told which symptom took it.
Motor Neurone Disease New Zealand
What it had to solve
New Zealand has one of the world's highest Motor Neurone Disease mortality rates, yet awareness and understanding of the illness stay low, starving MND NZ of funding. The June 2021 awareness push had to teach how the disease destroys lives, not just that it exists.
How it works
Motor Neurone Disease New Zealand faced a strange problem: the country had one of the world's highest mortality rates from MND, yet public understanding of the illness was so low that funding and support lagged. A new awareness push had to teach people what the disease actually does to a life, not just that it exists.
Working with agency Special Group, MND NZ hijacked TradeMe — New Zealand's largest online auction platform — for a store called David's Unusables. David Seymour, a Whangarei man in his late 50s living with MND, sold 33 belongings between June and August 2021 in the order the disease had taken them from him: hiking boots and boxing gloves first, everyday cutlery at the end. Each listing tied the object to a memory and to the symptom that made it unusable.
Infomercial-style spots fronted by New Zealand television personality Suzanne Paul, a text-to-donate line and a full PR and media plan kept attention on the sale as it unfolded over six weeks, beginning on 21 June 2021, Global ALS/MND Awareness Day.
All 33 items sold, the store's listings were viewed more than 63,000 times and the campaign reached over 1.5 million people — more than a quarter of the country — generating 41 PR articles and a media ROI of about $20 for every $1 spent, while raising over $7,000 through the store itself. David's Unusables went on to win a Cannes Lions Gold in Health & Wellness in 2022 and sits in the D&AD archive.
Why it lands
- The narrative is built into the format: items listed in the order the disease took them make its progression visible week by week.
- Each listing pairs a personal memory with the symptom that ended the activity, so the audience meets a whole person instead of a statistic.
- It repurposes a familiar commercial ritual — bidding on an auction site — so learning happens inside an everyday behaviour rather than interrupting it.
- The identifiable-victim effect does the work: one real man's story outperforms general appeals, and the objects give the story physical proof.
What it did
All 33 items sold; listings were viewed more than 63,000 times and the campaign reached over 1.5 million people, more than a quarter of New Zealand, with 41 PR articles and a media ROI of about $20 per $1 spent, while directly contributing over $7,000 to MND NZ through the store. The work won a Cannes Lions Gold in Health & Wellness in 2022 and entered the D&AD archive.
What you can take
When a cause is invisible, do not describe the illness — exhibit its losses: let someone who lives with it sell what it took, one object and one story at a time.
Since then
After the six-week sale closed, David's Unusables travelled the awards circuit: a Gold Lion in Health & Wellness at the 2022 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, a Gold at the 2022 Caples Awards, and a place in the D&AD archive. MND NZ said the raised profile gave it a critical step up when pitching for the funding and support that determine how people living with the disease are cared for.
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