New York’s always been a city with a big heart — but what happens when that heart goes missing? That’s the powerful hook behind LiveOnNY’s latest public service campaign, created by DeVito/Verdi, which cleverly tears the heart right out of the iconic “I ♥ NY” logo to ask New Yorkers for something far more vital than city pride: a chance at life.

Organ donation isn’t exactly a dinner table topic. It’s emotional, uncomfortable, and easy to put off until it’s too late. But DeVito/Verdi’s team turned that avoidance into their advantage — using absence as the loudest possible presence. Overnight, a symbol plastered on T-shirts, mugs, and subway souvenirs for decades became an unsettling reminder of the lives that can’t be saved when we don’t sign up to give.

Instead of leaning on shocking visuals or medical stats, the campaign does something more memorable: it quietly removes what we expect to see. You spot the familiar “I ♥ NY,” but the heart is gone — replaced by a chilling gap and a plainspoken plea: “New York needs organ donors.” Simple typography, no distractions, maximum punch.

This bold reimagining rolled out across subway stations, buses, mobile billboards, and retail corridors right at the peak of the holiday rush — exactly when people are hustling around the city, buying things nobody needs. The timing was perfect: what better moment to ask people to give something truly meaningful?

As Steven Verdi put it in an interview, the idea was to take a universally loved image and twist it just enough to stick in your head — to remind New Yorkers that their city’s pulse depends on its people. According to LiveOnNY, the real goal wasn’t just sign-ups but changing the conversation at kitchen tables and hospital beds. The copy lines pushed that further, flipping the hard sell into a human one: “You’d never stop a loved one from receiving a lifesaving organ. Why would you stop them from donating one?”

And the results? They’re as heartwarming as the creative is heart-wrenching: over 70% more registrations in just months, with record-breaking gains in Black, Hispanic, and Asian communities — groups historically underserved by organ donation. It’s proof that when public service ads hit the emotional sweet spot, they do more than raise awareness. They actually move people.

The campaign has been widely praised as a masterclass in visual minimalism — and rightly so. It’s not every day a city’s logo is transformed into a stand-in for a second chance at life, turning a familiar icon into something that makes you stop, look closer, and maybe even act.

In a world where so much advertising tries to fill every space, LiveOnNY found power in leaving space empty — and that emptiness did exactly what it was meant to do: make people think about what they could fill it with.

Take a second, give a second chance. — Julian Vega