Romania has rocker blood

Romania holds the last place in Europe by the number of blood donors: only 1.7% of Romanians donate blood, almost 10 times less than the Danes. The first half of 2019 was marked by an acute lack of blood: in the first quarter of  this year, at the Blood Transfusion Center in Bucharest,  the largest blood transfusion center in the country,  registered 1,100 fewer donors than in the same period of 2018, while the need for current blood remains  double. In this context, the morning show of ROCK FM – Morning Glory with Răzvan Exarhu initiated a campaign encouraging people to donate blood, constant and voluntary, in partnership with the blood Transfusion center of Bucharest and Donorium, an application  that makes blood donation We started the campaign from the insight that people donate blood when they are triggered by an inner resort. That resort would be, in our case, the music. Music that can change the world, because music can change people, as artist Bono said.

The campaign strategy was based on identifying and maintaining a symbol that is strong enough to create an experience for people to be really moved. Music unites people from all corners of the world, and in particular rockers have a kind of their own pride that is more striking than lovers of other genres of music. This pride of rockers comes mainly from the fact that rock music is not for anyone, that it is less commercial and that it is created with much more passion. The pride of any rocker, after all, is that rock sounds better, but also that any song would sound much better in its rock version. Thus, the main idea of the campaign was to stimulate the pride of the rocker community in Romania, transforming the most popular Romanian songs, which everyone knows and loves in their rock versions.  Six known rock bands in Romania accepted the challenge of launching at Morning Glory with Răzvan Exarhu, a rock cover inspired by the most popular Romanian songs, to mobilize people, rock listeners or not, to donate blood.

The start of the campaign “Romania has rocker blood” was marked by a  press conference held at the Bucharest Blood Transfusion Center. In the morning of the press conference, in another part of the city, at Băneasa station, dozens of rockers  met on their engines, another symbol of the rock community and embarked on the march to the blood Transfusion Centre in Bucharest. Also, we transformed the production of the rock covers into mini-concerts, in which influencers and opinion leaders were invited.  Dozens of celebrities joined the campaign, as they listened for the first time to the rock covers. VIPs such as Paula Herlo, Alex Dima, Cosmin Tudoran, Dana Rogoz, Anghel Damian, Marian Raslea, Razvan and Irina Fodor, joined our campaign. People in leadership and management in large companies in Romania also showed their support for the campaign, proving that they are #CEOCuSângeDeRocker (CEO with rocker blood). Steven van Groningen-Raiffeisen Bank,  Ondřej Šafář –  CEZ Romania, Ionuţ Ardeleanu –  Auchan Retail Romania, Frank Wagner – Lidl, Cosmin Vladimirescu – Mastercard and Horia Adrian – Holcim Romania joined the campaign. The #CEOCuSangeDeRocker project was amplified by an editorial project conducted in partnership with BIZ Magazine.

The “Romania has rocker blood” campaign represented a month when Romanians proved that they have rocker blood. Almost 4,000 Romanians have downloaded the Donorium app during the campaign. Online enthusiasm was also felt in offline at the Blood Transfusion Center in Bucharest, where the center received 32% more blood bags in the first week of the campaign (1,335 bags) compared to the previous week (1,008 bags).

“Romania has rocker blood” was a campaign that succeeded in transforming rock music into a symbol of solidarity, greatly exceeding the boundaries of the community listening to this musical genre. It is the first time that the rocker community in Romania has embraced so widely a social cause, giving a strong example of involvement by donating blood. It is also for the first time in Romania when so many CEOs, even from competing companies acted together, not only by supporting the campaign and donating blood, but by also sending out their message to thousands of employees in their companies.