• by Jeremy Wilson , Columnist, June 1, 2016

Category: Media Effie:  Media Innovation- Existing Channel 

Client: United Nations OCHA

Agency: Ogilvy One 

Title: #ShareHumanity

The Challenge: We live in an era characterized by extended conflicts, alarming climate instability and rising inequality. Much of this is invisible to the 24-hour media cycle, and often the work of humanitarians goes under the radar.

Engaging millennials is critical for the future of humanitarian aid. We wanted to use World Humanitarian Day (WHD) on Aug. 19 to celebrate the work humanitarians do and drive awareness around key humanitarian issues. Our objective was to expose the audience to what life in humanitarian crisis situations is really like and drive social engagement around these issues.

The Millennial audience looks to be involved and have an active role in contributing to causes. They don’t find straight monetary donations fulfilling. However, they wield great power through their social feeds and 70% of them consider these social feeds a force for change (eMarketer). Our challenge was to turn a barrier into an opportunity by leveraging social feeds to spread awareness. Since most view the news entirely in their social feeds, we had to design an experience that brought the issues to them.

The Solution: By creating an application that allowed participants to become a humanitarian for a day by donating their social feed for 24 hours, we made a day in the life of someone affected by humanitarian crisis relevant and contextual. Users could donate their feed to tell anyone of 17 stories on Facebook or Twitter. Each story was told in the first person through social posts and check-ins.

With the help of influencers and celebrities around the world to kick things off, this 24-hour feed donation delivered deep and immersive narratives.  The never done before feed donation brought a new currency of donation to life — personal social channels. Each story told inspired others to donate their feeds as well.

Results: The content flooded  newsfeeds and drove effective engagement across social platforms. The reactions of friends, family, followers, celebs and even the press drove posts to the top of social feeds around the world.

Media outlets that don’t typically discuss cause-related issues such as Bleacher Report, Perez Hilton, Harper's Bazar, and Yahoo Beauty covered the campaign. #ShareHumanity was trending on social networks and was included in tweets from stars such as Beyoncé and Ellen DeGeneres.

#ShareHumanity resulted in over 20,000 social feeds donated which brought these powerful stories to life in 180,000 social posts and over 350,000 social responses. Over 2.5 billion impressions were delivered across social and press coverage. By World Humanitarian Day the world knew what humanitarians did, who they were and people were able to #ShareHumanity.

 Effie Awards are known by advertisers and agencies globally as the pre-eminent award in the marketing industry and recognize any and all forms of communication that contribute to a brand's success. Gold, silver and bronze Effie winners will be announced at the 48th annual North American Effie Awards gala on June 2 in New York.