

Client: Sanquin
Case: #MyFirstBlood
Partner: LEC (European League of Legends competition)
Game: League of Legends
“Recruiting blood donors through a computer game may sound unconventional, but it proves effective.”
NOS Journal
How can you activate young men to become blood donors?
Pitch:
In a ground-breaking collab, The Invaders help Sanquin join forces with the European League of Legends competition (LEC) to use the extremely popular game as a springboard to promote blood donations. We made an interesting link between the important in-game occurence ‘first blood’, and the theme campaign #myfirstblood. The campaign encourages gamers to register as blood donors. For the first time ever, millions of gamers see a campaign message from an LEC partner, in which they are incentivized to become a blood donor in the real world. Gamers who take a blood test at Sanquin receive a League of Legends in-game skin as a reward.
Results:
- Over 7,400 young men registered as blood donors
- #myfirstblood generates significant international media attention and increases public awareness on the importance of blood donation in the Netherlands and beyond.
The campaign won several awards: Gold Spin Award, Gold GPCM Award, SAN Accent, Silver SponsorRing, Silver GPCM Award, and 2 Bronze Esprix Awards.
Want to know more? Come and sit in one of our comfortable gaming chairs and give us your arm. It won’t hurt, we promise.