How Creative Solutions Dominated the 2022 DMA Awards

The Mayor of London’s office wanted to make the city safer for women by asking men to shift from a passive role – as bystander to misogynistic behaviour – to intervening in potential acts of violence.

Misogynistic behaviour is often a precursor to violence, yet many men remain passive bystanders when witnessing it. Behavioural science insights showed that peer pressure would be the most effective way to change this, and make men act as women’s allies.

The agency created a raw campaign to make men uncomfortable with witnessing bad behaviour towards women and break their own inertia. 'Have a word with yourself, then your mates' was a simple but powerful call to action.

The message to men was that those who stand idly by rather than getting involved should ask themselves whether it's acceptable to witness toxic behaviour but do nothing. Using peer-to-peer pressure would compel them to step in.

The campaign ran on social media, in cinemas, and at Premier League football games. Out of home executions took over Piccadilly Circus, Transport for London sites and male bathrooms at venues across the capital.

Genuine social change was an achieved ambition, with schools incorporating the film into their curriculum.

This was a pro bono campaign that achieved:

On the Mayor's Instagram page alone, the film has been viewed more than 5.5 million times. The campaign spread internationally, from France, Italy and Sweden to Australia, Singapore and Brazil.

It was shared by large international organisations such as Fifa, the UN, universities, councils and NGOs, plus sports stars and influencers - with no paid support.

Proactively, TikTok put the film on its discover page and the campaign also made the front page of Reddit.

No one needs a paper TV Licence anymore - but seven million Direct Debit customers still hadn't chosen an eLicence, despite it cutting the cost of watching shows. Numbers had inched down, but the organisation wanted to rip up the record books to get them to drop faster.

A TV Licence is a legal entity, so switching from a paper copy to a digital version couldn’t be incentivised. But persuading people to switch was essential, not least because posting licence holders their renewal costs up to £2.8m each year.

The challenge was to make switching to paperless easier, in the form of an irresistible challenge to turbocharge interest. This led to the selection of a powerful fusion of personalised, QR-assisted technology and adrenaline-fuelled emotion.

QR codes caught on during the pandemic, so building the technology into the customer journey would make switching easier. Some 2.4 million customers received personalised QR codes that pre-populated their details on the TV Licensing website. All they had to do was tick a box and click 'done'.

The QR code was a good starting point. But to take things to another level, TV Licensing needed to bring switching to life in a competitive way people couldn't resist.

The TV-watching British public may not seem like honed competitors straining at the leash. But given the chance, we all like a challenge. The creative approach leveraged this insight and turned going paperless into a race.

The Record Breaking Mailing was born, for paper licence holders who think they haven't got time to switch. They were prompted to scan the QR code and share the time it took - and gain the glory - on Twitter. A bit of admin became a world-record attempt.

The message was delivered with an insert that challenged people to become a World Record Breaker. The QR code was placed centre stage, linked directly to a pre-populated web page showing the ‘record’ time the recipient needed to beat. A simple yet effective idea that got people switching and sharing the campaign mechanic.

The campaign overcame the apathy and inertia of an established, habitual customer base who were wedded to their old paper licence. Scores of online posts of people's record times were shared on Twitter, spreading valuable positive sentiment and comments about the TV Licence.

The mailing drove a 999% improvement on the previously most successful TV Licensing mailpack, working 10 times harder than the control. The conversion rate in the first month was 15.6%.

The projection of converted licence holders for the current financial year is just under 1 million customers. This single year’s-worth of licence holders switching to an eLicence should result in a postage saving of £2.3m for the BBC when projected over the next five years.

Rolling the campaign out to other licence-holder groups who don’t pay by Direct Debit is expected to help accelerate the switch to paperless and deliver even more cost savings.

Girls today grow up in a fast-moving, judgmental society with beauty trends held firmly in the eye of social media. To regain its radical ‘Real Beauty’ point of view, Dove needed to detoxify beauty for the next generation.

Dove’s research revealed the shocking insight that 80% of girls distort the way they look on social channels. The solution involved raising awareness of the dangers of a seemingly innocent filtering and photo-editing culture on popular platforms.

The apps pressure girls into altering their images to the point where they’re hardly recognisable, in turn damaging their self-esteem - and causing ‘selfie dysmorphia’. An attendant rise in cosmetic surgery has been cited as the leading cause for an increase in teen suicides.

The campaign needed to impact selfie culture, but in a way that didn't alienate the target audience of mothers and daughters. The ‘Dove Self-Esteem Project’ aimed to reveal the unknown lengths girls go to in manipulating their selfies; raise awareness of social media pressures; and ask parents to have conversations with their girls about social media, using the project toolkit provided.

The creative idea showed the damaging effect that retouching apps can have on young girls' self-esteem.

Ogilvy UK updated Dove's 2004 film ‘Evolution’ - about magazine retouching - for the selfie-generation, revealing that while the enemy has changed, the impact has not. The campaign was supported by brand ambassador Lizzo in a digital launch event and on her feed, gaining a considerable following and igniting the conversation.

Supporting the campaign, Lizzo posted herself naked under #NoDigitalDistortion, galvanising other celebrities and women to follow her lead and do the same, generating huge earned media in the process. Lizzo's perspective and personal experiences of facing unrealistic beauty standards matched the authenticity seen in the creative.

The campaign launched on multiple platforms to reach millions of parents and guardians. It was shared on social media and dominated headlines and talk shows. Importantly, it encouraged parents to talk with their daughters, and society to question the role of social media.

The campaign was Dove's most successful, running in 20 countries, and generating mass awareness for the issue and the actions taken by Dove. The initiative achieved six billion global impressions, with 3.2 billion in the US alone. It garnered 147 US media placements. Some 99% featured a key message, with 97% mentioning the campaign name.

The online launch event reached 78 million, double the ‘Project#ShowUs’ benchmark of 30 million. Lizzo's post received two million likes in one day, generating more than 35,000 comments and becoming her second most-liked post of 2021.

Among people exposed to the campaign, favourability increased by 19%, affinity by 21%, and Dove's key brand purpose measure of “inspires women to feel positive about the way they look” rose from 50% to 58%.

Awareness of Dove’s Self-Esteem Project increased from 17% to 67%, with weekly toolkit downloads reaching nearly 43,000. Significantly, 180,000 lives were positively impacted, exceeding benchmarks by 3.5 times.