Seize the Awkward

Challenge

To approach the issue of mental health awareness and youth suicide prevention, the Ad Council, in partnership with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and The Jed Foundation (JED) launched a campaign focused on helping young people start conversations about mental health with their friends. The Seize the Awkward campaign debuted in January 2018 and launched a new round of creative in May 2020, to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Month, with the copy, “There are so many ways you can check in with a friend about their mental health. Whether that’s through a call, text, GIF, or emoji. Reach out! It can make a big difference.” and the hashtag and website, SeizeTheAwkward.org.

Building on the success of this campaign, dentsu’s Attention Lab powered by VidMob partnered with the Ad Council to 1) increase performance across social KPIs for the 2021 Seize the Awkward campaign compared to 2020 and 2) gain a better understanding of creative nuances across each platform.

Solution

To showcase how Intelligent Creative can dramatically boost ad performance, we took a twofold approach:

LEARN & CREATE

Dentsu’s Attention Lab powered by VidMob solution enabled the team to analyze creative effectiveness from historical campaigns and built optimized creative for Snapchat and Instagram prior to the 2021 launch. TikTok creative was previously handled in house, so we were unable to conduct a historical analysis. For the first flight, compatible assets were transferred and launched.

LEARN & OPTIMIZE

Dentsu’s Attention Lab powered by VidMob solution enabled the team to analyze and optimize creative effectiveness mid-flight to drive overall efficiency and campaign effectiveness for Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

Results

• Creative optimization works - incorporating creative data into the campaign yielded higher performance for Seize the Awkward across all social platforms.
  • Instagram: 21% increase in Page Engagement Rate.
  • Snapchat: Swipe Rates more than doubled from the 2020 media flight with a 120% increase.
  • TikTok: 112% increase in Click Through Rate.
• Platform first design is essential - creating bespoke content, designed and tweaked for each platform drives the most impact.
• Great creative drives recall and action - Seize the Awkward as well as specific campaign elements in the messaging had higher recall among teens 16-18 after the 2021 campaign flights. Most importantly, more teens 16-18 took some action based on the Seize the Awkward campaign.