Brief Explanation

Best Toy in the World is designed to promote and strongly support the main Best Start Campaign from integrated media execution from TVC, Out of home, Print, and Online. Unicef Thailand believes that the first six years of life are the six golden years of children and urgently needed to raise public awareness, increase understanding on the importance of investing in early child development and gain government support to give the future children of Thailand the best start. But with empirical research findings pointing to Thai children falling below target for optimum early child development, especially those between 0-6 years. In collaboration with its corporate partners, UNICEF Thailand needed to drive emotional connection to promote its Best Start Campaign to gain more support from public's pledges and sharing while facing an uphill battle of urging the Thai Government to increase investment in early childhood development program for the country.

The Brief

Thai families place high value on maintaining family connections but as parents spend more time working to better lives and career, parents and children end up having less time together. Toys have become a substitute. In particular, only 36% of Thai fathers spend time with their children. They tend to be less involved in direct childcare than mothers and not participating adequately in parenting and family activities. People need human inspiration to realize how fathers play an important role in a child's development. Engaging them with a “stab-in-the heart” connection surrounding “The Best Toy” became central to Best Start Campaign.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

More than 500,000 views and more than 5,000 shares of Best Toy viral clip within 1 month after launch Achieved 5,453 pledges (+9% higher than target). Estimated >100% ROI as viral clip received earned media from influential news anchors promoting and sharing the campaign as well as countless reviews from >10 websites and major parent portals , with free TV interviews Most importantly, the Thai government has recently approved of the program and has an action plan in place to subsidize and invest in early child development in Thailand starting from October 1, 2015 for 0-1 year old child to receive subsidy THB 400 per month.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

We designed a candid-camera emotionally-charged moment meant to disrupt a family toy-shopping by juxtaposing a giant toy box with father inside as a motionless figure while unsuspecting children walked in to select any toy– only to find their father, disguised as a toy, boxed up in the “Best Toy in the World” With the real-time footage captured, we re-edited the content and created a viral clip on social media. To generate mass awareness, we integrated multi-screen and programmatic buying for precise parent targeting. They will be directed to www.beststartthailand.com and Best Start Facebook to support by signing a pledge during one month before the main Campaign launch. To create further hype, we mobilized Best Toy in the World Box at UNICEFS’s press release event to engage with media journalists and reporters. This was further activated by mobilizing a tour surrounding children-parent activity venues such as Kidzania and Children museum.