Unicef - VGU Video Game Pitch "Elika's Escape" - (2014) 2:29 (USA)

In a classic bait&switch, Unicef booked a seminar at Video Games United to present a one of a kind first person shoot to an eager gamer audience. As they begin to describe the game, everyone soon realises how different this "game" is. You play as a seven year old girl navigating the warzone. Your mother dies, your baby brother is shot, your older brother is killed, all the while you have to make it to a refugee camp where there's scant little food, trying not to starve to death or get shot along the way. <--!break-->
Hoodwinked, the audience who didn't walk out then get to hear a young woman Mari Malek who was such a refugee tell her story. And a young man, former "Lost boy" Manyang Reath , shares his. "You can help us protect the children of South Sudan" is the message Unicef wants us to take from all this, and "talk about, tweet about it, please help us spread the word".

While the venue for this presentation practically ensures viral spread right now, I'm disappointed by the call to action. Slacktivism isn't helping, and it feels like a lost opportunity to raise money for food and medicine. It's quite a bold idea for Unicef though, so props for trying a new twist in trendy prankvertising.
Shades of Kony aside, I do wish this had been edited down to a 60 so that donated media could have carried it on TV as well. Even for a web film it's an unnecessary long edit focusing too much on the game presentation, when we see the punchline coming 15 seconds in. There's no actual gameplay presented at all, just poorly drawn storyboards of awful scenes. I doubt this was discussed in favourable terms by the audience who paid to enter VGU, so this idea is reliant on viral spread alone now.

Client. Unicef