[ 매드타임스 최영호 기자] Anyone who has had a family member hospitalized knows this well. How difficult is nursing? However, when the child is sick, a caregiver is not available, and the mother is hospitalized and takes care of the child 24 hours a day. The longer the child’s hospital stay, the longer the mother’s hospital stay also becomes. Will her mother be able to sleep well in her hospital? She squats down on the cramped and uncomfortable caregiver’s bed and asks for rest. Shouldn’t she be able to take better care of her child if the mother is healthy? RMHC provides a home called the Ronald McDonald House so that patients and their families can stay near the hospital. However, there is only one place in our country, and it is not in Seoul, where it is most needed, but in Yangsan, Gyeongsangnam-do. Faced with this reality, Publicis Group Korea drew public sympathy and participation by visualizing a mother’s bed, which is only 0.3 pyeong.
hello. Please introduce yourself.
Publicis Group Korea aims to provide a differentiated one-stop solution through organic cooperation between group agencies with specialized expertise in each area, including planning, production, digital, media, and communication. this time <엄마의 침대> I can say that the project is a representative example of Power of One, where each individual part comes together to create true synergy.
I am <맥도날드 엄마의 침대> The campaign was very impressive. Please introduce the campaign.
The exact name of the campaign is <맥도날드 0.3평 엄마의 침대>no see. By the way, do you know the ‘0.3 pyeong mom’s bed’? In Korea, if a child is sick and is hospitalized, a guardian must legally accompany them to the hospital. You didn’t know, right? For this reason, many families of patients across the country come to Seoul, where treatment facilities are concentrated, and begin their caregiving lives in 0.3 pyeong cots. Korea’s unique caregiving culture, which is not found anywhere else in the world and has been maintained for over 50 years, makes the sacrifices mothers go through for months or more, 24 hours a day, in cots, taken for granted.
This ‘0.3 pyeong Mom’s Bed’ donation campaign is McDonald’s campaign to improve the culture of caring for sick children. McDonald’s, the largest sponsor of Ronald McDonald House (hereinafter referred to as RMHC House), believed that the construction of a second branch of RMHC House, a shelter for families of sick children, was urgently needed in Seoul.
What is RMHC House? Ronald McDonald House is a shelter next to the hospital provided by the charity to support families with sick children. Currently, Korea opened as the 51st store in the world in 2007. There is only one RMHC house in Yangsan, 388km away from Seoul.
Please tell us about the campaign idea behind the campaign.
We thought of a powerful visual solution to inform the public about the difficult reality of families of ill children, to raise awareness of the reality of mothers’ caregiving lives, to evoke empathy, and to encourage action. It was decided to take the extra bed, which was only 160x60cm in size, out of the hospital room. Also, we marked the commonly used single, double, queen, and king bed sizes with a line so that you can easily compare how small ‘Mom’s bed’ is. This 0.3 pyeong bed was displayed throughout Seoul, including Cheonggyecheon, large shopping malls, McDonald’s stores, and parks.
The first installation, Goyang Starfield, displayed 21 beds that told the stories of eight families with sick children. In addition, the 16m high media tower and 78m long panoramic screen were used to show how many parents spend months in the hospital confined to a small bed of about 0.3 pyeong.
In addition, the names and QR codes of the actual patient’s mother and father were wrapped on the makeshift bed, allowing visitors to directly see the real stories of the patient’s family. In order to inform more people about the painful reality of patients’ families and encourage donations, we aimed to have people experience their mother’s bed by sitting on the bed, taking pictures, uploading them to social media, and connecting them with QR.
What were the results?
After this campaign, people began to sympathize with the painful reality of families of patients and recognized the need for RMHC House. SBS Hope TV also showed the daily lives of many mothers who had to live in their mothers’ beds. Additionally, news and media reported on McDonald’s sincerity in working hard to help the families of patients suffering from pain. Thanks to these efforts, the city of Seoul finally responded. This allowed the establishment of the second RMHC House on the site of Seoul National University Hospital, the largest children’s hospital. The campaign brought about big change.
What was Publicis Group Korea’s role in this campaign?
We first proposed and launched the idea of a 0.3 pyeong mom’s bed campaign in 2023. And over the course of six months, we planned and produced various content throughout the campaign. We accompanied McDonald’s with the hope that more families of patients in Seoul would be able to visit RMHC House.
Mom’s Bed production team: Jun-seok Kang CW (Copywriter), Hye-seon Shin AD (Art Director), Seung-hyeon Kim AM (Account Manager), Chung-mo Yang GCD (Group Creative Director) (from left)
What would you like to emphasize most in the campaign?
The cot care culture exists only in Korea. Families of patients in our country must perform many of the duties expected of nurses in other countries. However, in order for sick children to become healthy, their mothers and their families, who provide 24-hour care for the children, must also be taken care of. Then, the child can free himself from the guilt that his parents are having a hard time because he is sick, and the guardians who have received proper rest can also focus more on caring for the child. The best cure for a child is family.
Please tell us about any memorable episodes during the campaign production process.
The patient’s family, who were scheduled to conduct an interview, canceled the interview that morning due to the patient’s health deteriorating. It was a moment when I felt that the patient’s family, who live in tension and worry for 24 hours a day in a situation where they do not know when the child will get sick, desperately need a shelter next to the hospital where they can rest their tired minds, even for just a few days.
What was the most difficult part of planning and executing the campaign?
The biggest difficulty was the thought that people thought, ‘You can help a sick child, but why should you help the sick child’s family?’ I was very worried about whether we could really change this perception. So, we really needed an idea that could strongly convey how painful the situation is for the families of sick children when their children get sick. After meeting many patients’ families and going through many ideas, the idea was born: ‘McDonald’s 0.3 pyeong mom’s bed’. I’m proud that this small idea became the cornerstone of creating big change.
Mom’s Bed Planning and Media Team: Planning Team Jo Min-woo, AD (Account Director), Media Team Jeong Ji-hee, Group Media Director, Planning Team Kim Joo-heon, GAD (Group Account Director), Planning Team Ko Cho-hee, AD (Account Director), Media Team Yoon Gwang-soo, Group Media Director (from the left) )
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