Spurred by an empty stomach and a worthy cause, three Dutch radio DJs worked in 3 shifts for 6 days straight, broadcasting from Leeuwarden and raising 12 million euros for the Dutch Red Cross. The campaign „Serious Request “ is amazingly simple: listeners can request music for 10 euros per song, and the djs are, of course, allowed to select and combine freely, providing for a smooth program and lots of proceeds for the Red Cross. To give the campaign an even higher audience appeal, the Djs fast for the entire duration of the program, living in a temporary glass house at a central location somewhere in the Netherlands. The campaign does, of course, get extensive media coverage: Among many other things, one of our modulboxes was used as a mobile television studio on site. From here, the action was covered more or less around the clock, even the Dutch evening news left its permanent home in Amsterdam for the temporary modulbox tv studio.
Under the slogan „Let’s Clean This Shit Up„, a Red Cross project is supported which is dedicated to eliminating diarrheal diseases responsible for killing 800,000 children worldwide per year. The revenue from „Serious Request“ supports the improvement of hygiene and sanitation in countries where the infant mortality rate caused by diarrheal diseases is high. One focus of the work will be an awareness campaign on the importance of clean drinking water and how this can be reached with the simplest of means by the parents themselves. The „Serious Request“ campaign now also takes place in Belgium, Kenya, South Korea, Sweden and Switzerland.
