Cannes Lions 2022 shortlist · Dubai Lynx 2021 · Sprinklr For Good 2022
ICRC — “React for Real”
Client: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) · Engagement: multi-phase strategic partnership (2+ years) · Services: digital strategy, data modeling, creator partnerships, measurement architecture.
The context
Afghanistan is one of the most contaminated countries in the world in terms of explosive remnants of war. Thousands of civilians — many of them children and young men — are killed or injured each year. For decades, awareness campaigns followed the same formula: posters, radio PSAs, brochures. Competently produced. Rarely remembered. The audience that needed reaching did not read brochures, and its attention was fiercely contested by global platforms.
The strategic insight
A meaningful share of the at-risk young male population spent time in gaming content ecosystems — livestreams, short-form gaming video, community Facebook groups. They were already rehearsing reactions to combat-adjacent situations — reactions that bore no relation to what you should actually do when you encounter real ordnance. The audience was already training itself. It was just training itself wrong.
What was done
Data modeling first. Before any creative work: a structured inventory of in-game situations mapping cleanly to the real-world survival protocols the ICRC teaches in the field. Creator collaboration, not influencer marketing. Creators whose audiences overlapped the at-risk demographic, engaged on terms that respected their voice. Native integration, not overlay ads. Survival prompts embedded in the flow of the content the audience already consumed. Measurement architecture. The metric was not reach — it was a measurable lift in correct-protocol recall against control, and the measurement rig was built before the creative.
The result
Cannes Lions 2022 — Shortlist, Creative Data (Social Data & Insights). Dubai Lynx 2021 — Winner, Breakthrough on a Budget. Sprinklr For Good 2022 — Customer Unifier Award. Measured lift in protocol recall against the control group, statistically significant for the ICRC’s internal evaluation (precise figures confidential).
Stefan’s role
Led the digital strategy, architected the in-game-to-real-world data model, oversaw creator partnerships and the measurement framework, and presented to ICRC leadership and field-office stakeholders. The same principles — audience-native creative, measurement-first, small teams with high accountability — now structure the agency’s commercial work.