whiteGREY Melbourne turns takeaway coffee into mobile missing persons ads

That coffee cup you carry on your morning commute and plant on your desk has the potential to bring a missing person back to his or her family. And MPAN (Missing Persons Advocacy Network) is hoping it does that job.

Twenty of Melbourne’s top cafes will serve takeaway coffees in biodegradable cups featuring the portraits of six missing Australians for MPAN this National Missing Persons Week (5 – 11 August).

The idea comes from whiteGREY, continuing its Unmissables campaign.

In addition to the hand-held missing persons posters and cafe exposure, the campaign is running in high awareness media sites, including TV news channels, The Age, Broadsheet and across social platforms.

“The Unmissables campaign replaces stark, grainy missing persons photos with human reflections and stories,” explained MPAN chief executive officer, Loren O’Keeffe. It aims to raise awareness of the 38,000 Australians who go missing each year.

“A collaboration between families, artists and writers, each heartfelt portrait goes way beyond the vital statistics to create a picture of the person behind them. With this campaign we continue to re-imagine traditional missing person’s posters,” stated whiteGREY associate creative director, Sally Richmond.

Emily White, manager of Richmond’s Pillar of Salt Café, added, “MPAN is a tiny charity supporting the families and friends of missing people, many of whom are searching for their loved ones through the worst kind of grief, ambiguous loss. It’s a unique type of trauma I have personal experience with. We need to raise the profile of this issue. What better way to reach Melburnians than through their daily coffee and art?”