Title | UNTIL WE ALL BELONG |
Brand | AIRBNB |
Product / Service | AIRBNB |
Category | E01. Integrated Campaign led by PR |
Entrant | CLEMENGER 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 |
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 |
With a limited paid media budget (under $50,000) we wanted to go beyond just a short term consideration spike, we wanted to create a movement that would not rest until same-sex marriage becomes law. To do this, we needed a symbol that could be immediately recognisable, allow people to show their support and spark the volume of conversation and societal pressure that would be required to help create change. We took one of the oldest symbols of marriage – the wedding ring – and turned it into a unique media channel, a symbol for marriage inequality, the Acceptance Ring. The matte black metal ring is an incomplete circle with the gap serving as a physical representation of the gap in same-sex marriage in Australia, designed with support from world-renowned designer Marc Newson. It turned the hands of hundreds of thousands of Australians into a media channel supporting gay marriage.
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 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.
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.