African-Americans are critically underrepresented on NMDP's donor registry, creating dangerous gaps for Black patients with blood diseases who need a compatible match. NMDP needed to engage the Black community in a way that felt genuine rather than transactional, and do it within a concentrated timeframe.

NMDP had never launched outside the United States. Mexico was the first. The market came with real barriers: deep cultural reluctance around donation, low institutional trust, and limited awareness of blood diseases and transplantation. A translation of the US strategy was not going to work.

NMDP needed to grow brand awareness and drive bone marrow donor registrations among younger audiences. The challenge was creating urgency around a cause most people have never personally encountered, at the most crowded media moment of the year.