Saatchi Brings Online Drought to Farmerama

 Everything was fine until the 22nd of March 2013, when the drought disaster hit more than 45 million online farmers around the world who opened their accounts on Farmerama.

 

The fields are dry, the grass is brown, the animals’ tongues are hanging out for lack of water, and every farm is a catastrophe. Everything that was carefully planted and long cultivated and cared for has fallen victim to the first online global drought. What now?

 

The initiative by Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt for World Water Day aims to help the UN Water and the Ending Hunger Movement of FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) call attention to water scarcity and the problems of real life farmers around the world.

 

Online farmers are given the choice to carry on playing, or to help end the virtual drought by passing on the message or making a donation for low-cost pumps, water tanks, tubing and other supplies for poor farmers. 

 

The campaign for World Water Day impacts not only online farmers, but a much wider audience as it can be shared on Facebook. Donors can also make a contribution on the dedicated microsite: www.farmageddon.eu.  All donations received are passed directly to FAO to finance practical help for farmers in developing countries. 

 

The shock hitting Farmerama’s online farmers on World Water Day is experienced every day as a gruesome fact of life by real farmers living in regions of the world plagued by erratic rainfall.  The aim of “Farmageddon – the first online global drought”campaign is to communicate precisely this feeling in a relevant and unexpected way to an online community mainly made of a rich western audience not used to having to deal with problems such as water shortage. And, in turn, intensify awareness of the meaning of water as an essential natural resource for humanity and generate willingness to donate directly to an important cause.

 

“With Farmageddon, we establish a direct connection between online farmers and real agricultural projects around the globe”, says Jorg Riommi, Executive Creative Director and Sebastian Schier, Digital CD, of Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt.

 

 

The idea behind the UN “Farmageddon” charity project was developed by the Saatchi & Saatchi team in Frankfurt led by Jorg Riommi, Executive Creative Director, and Dirk Göbel, Managing Director. The campaign is developed in cooperation together with Bigpoint, the creators of the online farm simulation game Farmerama. “Farmageddon” is the first significant project created by Saatchi & Saatchi Frankfurt for the United Nations.