New client: the Human Rights Foundation asks Buena to help crack North Korea’s information wall
North Koreans can’t see the outside world, and USB drives were a way in. The Human Rights Foundation asked us to get more of them over the border.
This month the whole world got the same instructions: shelter in place, wash your hands, keep your distance. For millions of refugees, every one of those was impossible. In April 2020 the Norwegian Refugee Council and Buena started working together on what to do about it.
The people who couldn’t stay home
The Norwegian Refugee Council, NRC, works with people forced to flee their homes. In the spring of 2020 the people it serves were facing the pandemic in crowded shelters, short on supplies, with no room to keep their distance.
And almost nobody was looking. Everyone was absorbed in their own lockdown, and as the world began to reopen, every cause and every brand was competing for attention.
Meet people where they already are
Stuck at home, people were spending hours online, and a lot of those hours were spent gaming. That was the opening. Instead of asking people to stop what they were doing and pay attention, we looked for a way to make what they were already doing count.
Go where the hours are
Find the audience in the places people spent lockdown, not in another ad break.
Make play pay
Turn time people already spend into money for real shelter.
Let creators carry it
Bring streamers and their audiences in, so the idea spreads without paid media.
Where it went: Sheltercraft
The idea became Sheltercraft. Minecraft, a game where you can build anything out of simple blocks, had 150 million players. Sheltercraft asks them to build shelters for refugees on a dedicated server, with corporate sponsors donating toward a real shelter for every digital one built, and streamers running charity streams on Twitch and YouTube while they build.
Sheltercraft, in numbers
- 150MMinecraft playersThe audience Sheltercraft set out to turn into virtual volunteers.
- 1Mshelters as the shared goalThe target for digital shelters built on the Sheltercraft server.
- 32MMinecraft viewer hours on Twitch in a monthFrom our research at the time: the streaming audience was already there.
Between April and September 2020 we mapped hundreds of Minecraft creators, designed the server world, the website and an influencer pitch video, and built sponsor decks with NRC. The full story is on the Sheltercraft case page.
NRC and Buena, 2020
April 2020
The partnership begins
NRC and Buena set out to get the world thinking beyond its own shelter.
Spring 2020
The idea
Sheltercraft: Minecraft players build digital shelters that fund real ones.
September 2020
The pitch
The server world, website, sponsor decks and influencer pitch video are ready.
It started with a simple observation: everyone was building a life indoors. The question was whether some of that building could put a roof over someone else.
