A disruptive technology calls for a breakthrough media campaign.
We took an innovative multi-channel approach to help Wearsafe combat assault on campus
Consumer
Creative
Design
Marketing
Media Planning & Buying
The Challenge
Wearsafe was an important solution, but no one was talking about it.
Despite the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, the issue is still largely ignored by both students and parents. Wearsafe created an ingenious peer-to-peer wearable technology that alerts friends and family, discretely, if an assault or threat occurs. With low awareness for the issue and almost no awareness for Wearsafe's solution, educating people on the problem and Wearsafe's solution was the mission.
The Insight
To get people interested in the solution, they first had to talk about the problem.
In a study cited by the New York Times, 1 in 4 women surveyed had experienced assault during college. While it's clear that sexual assault remains a huge issue on campus, most are unaware of its magnitude. Further, when speaking with mothers of students, almost all were aware of assaults from their own college experiences, but it wasn't something people talked about. So let's start the conversation.
The Research
We knew awareness was a challenge, but we needed to dig deeper.
We held one-on-one interviews as well as focus groups with female high school seniors. In parallel, we conducted surveys and focus groups among parents to gather their perspectives on the issue of violent assault on campuses. In addition, we wanted to hear what students and parents were doing to protect themselves, and leverage these findings into messaging that would resonate.
The Solution
This was more than marketing, this was about driving change.
More than a campaign for Wearsafe's personal emergency response tag, we wanted to work with Wearsafe to get one step closer towards increasing awareness and eliminating assault. This included working with content publishers to identify bloggers popular among moms—enlisting them to share Wearsafe's story and ensure our message was heard. By elevating awareness to the issue, our campaign empowered students (and their parents!) with information to combat assault.lth.
Smarter Experience
We found the right time and place to start the conversation.
To reach out target students and parents, we developed and delivered an integrated campaign timed to coincide with students moving into campus. We used social channels, search ads, digital radio, blogger influencer marketing and geo-ad placements—all designed to reach students and parents as they prepped for the beginning of the college semester.
Our ads were intentionally provocative—combining upbeat on-campus images with sobering headlines about sexual assault on campus.
The Outcome
Strategic media and provocative creative led to a measurable, and meaningful impact
Throughout the campaign, organic traffic, an indicator of brand awareness, increased 240% and we found that geo-targeted mobile ads were 10x more effective in driving conversations, and were the grounds for future campaign optimization.
