In South Korea, 661 children have been missing for over one year, and 638 of those have been missing for more than five years. Unfortunately, the longer they are missing, the more indifferent people become.
To stop people from forgetting about these kids, the Korean National Police Agency and Cheil Worldwide created the Hope Tape – packaging with 28 missing children’s information on them. The Hope Tape was launched on International Missing Children’s Day (25th May), in order to raise awareness and help find long-term missing children.
Using technology, the agency created age-processed images of the children to showcase what they would look like today, to put alongside an image of them from when they went missing. The tapes also had a QR code through which users could access a database with more information and report any relevant information as well.
The agency tied up with a local e-commerce platform that would use its tape packaging, and anyone sending a parcel via Korea Post could use the tape.
Within a month, more than 630,000 packages were sent across the country with the message, spreading information more effectively than any flyer could. The result was equal to 100,000 flyers distributed per child.
Many parents of missing children still hope to find their kids someday. The Hope Tape became a way of delivering crucial information about missing children directly to people’s doorsteps all across the nation, and drew attention to the pressing issue unlike ever before.
