Using Virtual Reality to honor extraordinary bravery in the battle against childhood cancer.

Background

St Jude is funded exclusively by donations, meaning that the families never have to pay a cent. So they needed our help to raise awerness of their mission to end childhood cancer and help with their fundraising.

Insight

The Children at St. Jude show extraordinary bravery as they battle for their lives, something that's traditionally celebrated with a statue.

Idea

To celebrate these incredible acts of bravery, we created something only possible in VR — The St. Jude Hall of Heroes, a collection of 60 feet tall statues and a virtual monument to the inspiring strength of St. Jude's young patients.

Results

We tripled awerness of St. Jude's mission to end childhood cancer, and helped make 2019 the most successful year of fundraising to date.

Annika

acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Annika has an incredible peace about her. You'd never guess she's gone through chemotherapy, spinal taps and biopsies. No matter how sick Annika felt, she was always more concerned about the other children around her and how they felt. She set a goal to be home by her birthday, and she made it with three weeks to spare.

12 Unique Heroes

To make the statues perfect, we spent time with each of our St. Jude's patients, their parents, and the staff who treated them. We took unique elements of each patient's story and worked iteratively with them to create their larger-than-life superheroes. Each one-of-a-kind statue represents a story, a battle, a team, and at the center a young patient who never gave up.

A Celebration of Life

The Hall itself is a fantasy world filled with life. Visitors can wander among the towering statues, float up into the air for a closer look, and hear the stories of bravery told by friends and family. The VR app is free and available for download in the Oculus Store. The AR experience exists as a Facebook and Instagram lens. All virtual visitors are welcome, and so are donations.

Audio Stories

Each statue features an audio story that activates when a visitors interacts with the statue. Narrated by the patients family it let's our visitors hear the incredible story behind each statue. .

Mobile Version

To bring the statues into the real world, we partnered with Facebook to create an AR lens that allowed people to place their favorite statue in a public location, take a picture and share it. We linked to the lens through QR codes on posters and through paid social posts - including Facebook’s brand new AR ad unit that allows people to experience AR from within their feed. We joined forces with celebrities and influencers to share their statue pics and promoted our favorites.

Best Buy Partnership

To bring the Hall of Heroes to even more people, we partnered with Best Buy to make the Hall of Heroes available in 145+ stores nationwide at their Oculus Demo Stations. Visitors were encouraged to donate St. Jude's mission.