Challenge

The International Red Cross (ICRC) upholds the Rules of War to protect the humanitarian rights of people in conflict zones all around the world. But these rules are being broken as the world watches, in dozens of conflicts happening right now, from the Ukraine to the Central African Republic.

For this campaign, the ICRC sought help raising awareness and educating people about those rules. Our aim was to make a difference in real life by reaching soldiers who could find themselves on the battlefield, in situations requiring a clear understanding of the Rules of War.

Inspiration

Every day, millions of gamers play war right from their couch. In first-person-shooter games (FPS), players act as soldiers, but play without rules or consequences. A large portion of these gamers actually become soldiers. In fact, over 50% of newly enlisted soldiers play video games. In short, today's gamers are tomorrow's soldiers.

Idea

We created Play by the Rules, a campaign challenging gamers to play FPS by the real Rules of War and help make a difference on battlefields IRL.
Top gamers from the most popular FPS games joined the cause. They spread the word to a collective following in the millions—many of whom are in the right demographic to one day become soldiers themselves.

Our gamers played by the rules in a livestream on Twitch, hosted by an expert from the ICRC. We also debuted a custom Fortnite mode, with the Rules of War built directly into the flow of the game.

Growth

The livestream alone had 143,618 unique viewers—756 times more than ICRC’s current Twitch follower count.

1,170 chat messages were sent as the livestream progressed, and more and more commenters engaged with the ICRC by asking questions about the Rules of War. Viewers started to demonstrate that they understood, with one commenter saying, “Kudos to the ICRC for this amazing project to make the Rules of War understandable for everyone.”

8,400 people visited the microsite in the six days that followed launch. And thanks to our influencer's video posts and paid media, the campaign received over 3 million impressions.

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Press

The Red Cross wants you to follow the Rules of War in multiplayer games
USA Today
Red Cross urges gamers to obey laws of war while playing first-person shooters: 'Even wars have rules'
Fox News
Red Cross Challenges Gamers To Play Shooters Using Real-Life Rules Of War
Gamespot
The Red Cross asks FPS gamers to ‘play by the rules’ of real-life war
Evening Standard

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