The initiative, known as "Blood Relations" was borne out of a global challenge "The Impossible Brief", launched by Saatchi & Saatchi Israel at the 2010 Cannes Advertising Festival. Creative minds from all over the world were invited to present ideas that would bring Israelis and Palestinians closer together.
A winning idea was selected by a panel of Palestinian, Israeli and international communications experts and was announced at the Cannes Festival of Creativity in June this year. The idea, from Jean-Christophe Royer of BETC Paris inspired "Blood Relations".
Following the live donations that have been taking place in Tel Aviv at the headquarters of the Israeli Blood Bank, Magen David Adom and in a mobile blood donation ambulance set up in Cinematheque Square, the site www.bloodrelations.org was launched to allow people all over the world to virtually donate their blood in support of the project.
Supermodel Bar Rafaeli has been the first to tweet her support for "Blood Relations", and has urged her 60,000 twitter followers to do the same. Social media will play an integral role in the project and also includes the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/the.impossible.brief.
Earlier in the week, Saatchi & Saatchi took part in an event at the Shimon Peres Center in Tel Aviv to mark UN Peace Day. A film documenting the blood donations was premiered alongside an exhibition of the Impossible Brief finalists. The film will be publicly available following its television premiere on Channel 2 in Israel on Friday night, 30 September 2011.
A group of international, Israeli and Palestinian communications experts including Kamel Husseni, founder and managing partner of Ellam Tam, the first communications and public relations company in the Palestinian authority and Yossi Lubaton, CEO of BBR Saatchi & Saatchi Israel, conducted a panel discussion at the Peres Center on the role of creativity and advertising in promoting the relations between the two nations.
Ali Abu Awwad, spokesperson and project manager said on behalf of the Parents Circle Families Forum: "'Blood Relations' seeks to provide a catalyst for dialogue by demonstrating two peoples' shared humanity through the common bond of blood. It is incumbent upon us to stress the need for an ongoing dialogue towards peace, whatever the result of the Palestinian quest for an independent viable state."
Yossi Lubaton, CEO of BBR Saatchi & Saatchi Israel said: "I am very pleased that the Impossible Brief project is entering its second year of activities. It's exciting to see how an idea conceived in an ad agency by creatives, which is just beginning to take shape, can influence people in the most profound way.
"The world of communications and of politics is changing at breakneck speed; we are witnesses to a revolution whereby the power has passed to the consumer, to the ordinary citizen. Things that were impossible to imagine less than a year ago are in full swing today.
"The motto we live by in all our work is that nothing is impossible. And surely the fact that, even during such a politically sensitive time, we are managing to launch the 'Blood Relations' idea in collaboration with the Parents Circle Families Forum and the Peres Center for Peace, is the greatest testament to that notion."
The live blood donations taken through the week will now be shared by Israeli hospitals through the Israeli Blood Bank, Magen David Adom and by the Al-Makassed Islamic Charitable Society Hospital for Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
Go to www.bloodrelations.org for more information and to virtually donate.
