The Campaign

The life changing stories of SISTER2Sister go far beyond words; music expresses things that cannot easily be said, making it the perfect vehicle to share a message of hope and support for the young women in most need across Australia, and to resonate with a target audience numbed by traditional charity communications. So we developed the platform The Illuminate Project as a hub to tell our story, housing the music video, core information about S2s and the NIVEA partnership and as a way to donate. And we fronted our story with truth, selecting up and coming Grammy shortlisted talent Spare Pages, whose own story was founded on a mentor relationship with The Voice AU’s Emily Rex reaching out to poet Azure Antoinette (who has worked with Maria Shriver and Oprah) over social media to forge a new genre in music – SubSOUL, which is a combination of lyric, melody and poetry.

Creative Execution

• Engage company and personal networks to pre-purchase song on iTunes to drive potential for song to enter charts • Pre-seeding of exclusives to select TV, online, radio, print media 2 weeks prior to song launch (8 March) • Radio news release launch International Women’s Day 10 March, leveraging this as a hook to further drive timeliness to story • Music marketing partner Creative Dreams engaged influencers to share video online with network of influencers from 12 March, supported with paid media on Facebook for 6 weeks post song launch • Continue wider media outreach, with Creative Dreams sharing news and driving coverage in music media • NIVEA social media content drove support for the campaign from end-March onwards, with paid support. • We worked with S2s to share content on their social media, where the video was housed for the campaign duration and shared by all influencers as led by Creative Dreams.

The song debuted in the top 100 on day one of release on iTunes and #3 on the Australian R&B charts, charting on Debut for the first three days. Within the first week of release, the music video hit 59,000 organic views, with 233,000 in just 19 days. The Illuminate Project garnered media attention across broadcast, online, print and music media, exposing the brand, NIVEA and our messaging to a wide audience in a way that neither brand had ever approached with marketing communications. The Huffington Post Australia (online), The Carousel (online) and The Morning Show (online) were core top tier media secured, with 100% of coverage including the NIVEA brand, 2+ key messages & campaign URL. Total reach of digital media was 1.8 million; total impressions from earned media 6 million+ and music marketing 1.7+ million.

The strategy consisted of a mix of earned media, social, digital, with storytelling at the heart. We created a platform for NIVEA’s core CSR initiative, SISTER2sister, that would break through the clutter of the charity space by being able to tell the story of SISTER2sister and the life-changing impact of its program in an authentic and compelling way.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Abandon the traditional case study or ambassador led charity awareness campaign and use music to tell our story, leveraging the power of influencers and fresh talent to drive earned media coverage and social media conversation with Australian women (25-45) who are NIVEA consumers or new consumers, potential donors to SISTER2sister, secondary Australian women (<25). The ‘Illuminate’ narrative has a number of strong story elements and interesting personalities that would resonate with a mass audience. However, we needed to be targeted in our approach, as most major outlets require exclusivity for a story package. Securing exclusives with key titles across different mediums not only guarantees a large share of voice to a wide-ranging audience but can often trigger further organic coverage/syndications on the subject, broadening the conversation. Following this, we widened our reach with a national Radio News Release and broader consumer media outreach with case studies and interview opportunities.