A-Team's Mr T supports ORBIS with online adverts
Howard Lake | 20 December 2004 | News
Sight charity ORBIS is launching its first online advertising campaign featuring actor Mr T, who played BA Baracus in the cult TV series The A-Team.
The campaign, which launches just before Christmas, is aimed at raising awareness of the charity amongst 20 to 45 year olds in the UK.
In the run-up to Christmas Mr T will appear in a series of Web banner adverts as BA Baracus to inform people of the charity’s Flying Eye Hospital and sight saving work around the globe.
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A running joke on the TV series was BA Baracus’ point-blank refusal to get on any kind of aeroplane. Speaking from LA, Mr T said: “ORBIS are doing a fine job in saving sight and preventing blindness in the world’s poorest countries. I’m happy to be helping them raise money for their training programmes and the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital”.
![[banner advert]](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/graphics/advert_library/orbis_mrt_babaracas_200412.jpg)
ORBIS hired online advertising company Lean Mean Fighting Machine to produce the campaign. Sammy Dunham, ORBIS E-Communications Manager added: “Mr T was voted fourth best American in a recent BBC poll. To have such an iconic figure actively endorse our work in reducing those afflicted by avoidable blindness is a measure of its importance and is invaluable in helping us to increase our profile.”
The campaign consists of three different banner ads in which BA explains why thinks ORBIS deserves support. In one ad he says: “I pity the fool who refuses to help blind people see again. I ain’t getting on no plane, but I will donate some cash to the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital.”
The ads will be running over the Christmas period on The Guardian, NME, and Friends Reunited.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.