UNTIL WE ALL BELONG

Short List
TitleUNTIL WE ALL BELONG
BrandAIRBNB
Product / ServiceAIRBNB
CategoryB02. Public Affairs & Lobbying
EntrantCLEMENGER BBDO MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation CLEMENGER BBDO MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
Media Placement STARCOM Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
PR N2N COMMUNICATIONS Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production REVOLVER/WILL O'ROURKE Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production 2 THE GLUE SOCIETY Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production 3 FLARE PRODUCTIONS BBDO Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Production 4 FINISH PRODUCTIONS Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
James McGrath Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Creative Chairman
Ant Keogh Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Chief Creative Officer
Evan Roberts Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Creative Director
Stephen de Wolf Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Creative Director
Tom McQueen Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Creative
George McQueen Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Creative
Paul Rees-Jones Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Executive Planning Director
Sonia von Bibra Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Agency Executive Producer
The Glue Society Revolver/Will O'Rourke Director
Russell Boyd Revolver/Will O'Rourke DOP/Cinematographer
Philip Horn The Glue Society Editor
Andrew Packer Flare Productions Editor
Phoebe Marks & Jasmin Hellier Revolver/Will O'Rourke Producers
Brie Stewart Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Head of Social
Josh Mullens Revolver/Will O'Rourke Executive Producer/Head of Projects
Michael Ritchie Revolver/Will O'Rourke Managing Director/Executive Producer
Craig Bulman Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Head of Studio and Print Production
Cynthia Bons Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Agency Digital Producer
Adam Hengstberger Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Senior Digital Designer
Priya Stewart Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Digital Designer
Sylvain Simao Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Technical Lead Developer
Sonali Bhattacharya Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Tester
Steve Pratt Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Head of Digital Imaging
Nick Campion Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Group Account Director
Lucy Grigg Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Head of Project Management
Johannes Samson Clemenger BBDO Melbourne Account Director
Ben Hallam Airbnb Brand Marketing Lead, Australia & New Zealand
Daniel Gervais Airbnb Brand Marketing, Australia & New Zealand

The Campaign

We knew if we could amplify the existing acceptance across all walks of life we could have significant impact on the same-sex marriage debate. Our strategic approach was to go beyond the core LGBTQ community and harness the support of the majority of Australians who want to see same-sex marriage become law. We knew most Australians would know someone who was personally affected by this lack of equality and that we had to make this personal for each and every person. We targeted influential Australians across all walks of life, as well politicians. The responses, whether for or against our initiative would, we knew, only serve to fuel the debate, which is exactly what we wanted. The additional strategy was to target big businesses, to try and rally key Australian companies to stand up alongside us to maximize our exposure and increase pressure on politicians.

Execution

Immediately, we provoked conversations. The majority of Australians who are in favour of same-sex marriage rallied to our cause, speaking out in favour of our campaign. The more right wing & religious elements of Australian society and government were appalled, and accused us of something tantamount to corporate bullying. This clash created huge volumes of coverage, just as we had hoped for. With corporate Australia flocking to our side to show their support, we managed to secure huge amounts of premium coverage, from long form editorials, hours of positive on air coverage on radio shows and current affair TV programs, to an unprecedented placement on all Qantas domestic flight boarding passes. At the same time, our social content was shared by influencers and as the acceptance rings started arriving into people’s homes, they were all too keen to take the social pledge and share their UGC in support of #untilweallbelong.

Within 3 days of our campaign launching, Airbnb became the most mentioned brand in both Australian and global conversations around same-sex marriage. We rallied other major corporates to our cause, including ANZ, Qantas, eBay, PWC, Foxtel, Fairfax Media, Marie Claire, ARN (Australian Radio Network). From these partnerships, we garnered a depth and breadth of PR coverage. Highlights included Marie Claire undertaking an 8-page spread about our campaign and rallying Australian celebrities to take the pledge themselves, front page coverage on Australia’s biggest national newspaper and segments on nearly every major news network. We also saw ‘money can’t buy’ coverage with Qantas allowing us to, for the first time, turn the back of every boarding card issued for domestic flights be turned into #untilweallbelong placement. Our initial allocation was sold out within the first 24 hours. So far, 200,000 rings have been sold and are continuing to be ordered at a rate of 1,700/day. We propelled the same-sex marriage conversation back into the forefront of public consciousness with over 2,000,000 shares of same-sex marriage articles in the 2 months since launch alone. Despite the inherently divisive nature of this subject our campaign has achieved a sentiment score of 98% positive.

The Situation

The Acceptance ring reignited the public debate around same-sex marriage in Australia and did so with a paid media budget of under $50,000. Our campaign focus utilise earned-media tactics to influence public dialogue by creating a symbol that high profile supporters of same-sex marriage could rally behind. Unlike most PR campaigns, we aimed not just to influence the public and the media, but also sought to engage with and bring on board other key, influential Australian companies.

The Strategy

We knew if we could amplify the existing acceptance across all walks of life we could have significant impact on the same-sex marriage debate. Our strategic approach was to go beyond the core LGBTQ community and harness the support of the majority of Australians who want to see same-sex marriage become law. We knew most Australians would know someone who was personally affected by this lack of equality and that we had to make this personal for each and every person. We targeted influential Australians across all walks of life, as well politicians. The responses, whether for or against our initiative would, we knew, only serve to fuel the debate, which is exactly what we wanted. The additional strategy was to target big businesses, to try and rally key Australian companies to stand up alongside us to maximize our exposure and increase pressure on politicians.

Links

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