Campaign Summary

LegalWise described its campaign against the violence perpetrated on women and children in South Africa.

Strategy

Objective and Context:

"16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence" is an international campaign to challenge violence against women and children. The campaign runs every year from November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to December 10, International Human Rights Day.

LegalWise supports this international campaign yearly to drive awareness of the millions of South African women and children who fall victim to violence. As part of the campaign objective, LegalWise provides information about and contact details for relevant support groups that can help victims in need.

Target Audience:

To promote mass awareness of the campaign, LegalWise targeted all South African Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube users who were 18 or older. In addition, LegalWise targeted custom audiences built through its previous "16 Days" campaigns, consisting of consumers who viewed videos and engaged with the previous campaign. LegalWise also extended its custom audience reach through Lookalikes.

Creative Strategy:

In November 2018, LegalWise used mobile in-feed video ads displaying WhatsApp stories of victims of abuse crying out for help. These videos highlighted the real-life drama and fear these victims of violence experience.

LegalWise's video ads blended into consumers' feeds, but had a disruptive emotional hook to gain viewers' attention and to get them to stop to watch the ads. These videos ran in Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter news feeds as well as YouTube pre-rolls.

Execution

Overall Campaign Execution:

LegalWise sought to use social media video to:

• Create mass awareness of the reality of violence against women and children in South Africa.
• Educate victims on where they could get help when in need. Those who showed interest in the campaign could click through to a microsite where LegalWise listed support groups, contact details, and website addresses.
• Encourage viewers to pledge to support the no-violence initiative by sharing/retweeting the videos. LegalWise made it easy to pledge by simply asking people to share the video/retweet the video, which had the additional benefit of further spreading awareness.

Mobile Execution:

LegalWise knew that WhatsApp is the most used messaging app in South Africa. The organization created WhatsApp stories depicting scenarios of victims of abuse crying out for help, enabling viewers to "experience" the anxiety and fear of the victims as they read/viewed the WhatsApp story videos.

Results (including context, evaluation, and market impact)

LegalWise:

• Garnered over 1.3 million video views over the 16-day period
• Achieved a View-Through Rate (VTR) of 34.39 percent
• Received over 25,000 clicks to the website from users who wanted to learn more

These results marked a significant improvement over the previous year’s campaign. The VTR increased by 20 percent measured against the 2018 campaign and LegalWise’s cost per view decreased by 40 percent. In addition, LegalWise’s pledges against violence increased by 36 percent from the previous year’s 16 Days campaign.