Finish It: #Catmaggedon
The Truth Initiative
Brief as received
We have beaten teen smoking!
In 2000, 23% of teens smoked and now, in 2016, only 8% smoke. Now Finish It.
Make Gen-Z the generation that ends smoking.
Research & Insights
Easier said, then done.
Online research, focus groups and intercepts with 16-18 year olds.
92 out of 100 Gen Z young adults don’t smoke, so they don’t relate to tobacco use as a social or personal health issue.
They want to be an agent of social change and to make a difference for causes they care about, like the environment, bullying, gay rights, income inequality… but do not see tobacco as one of these issues.
They basically don’t care about stopping smoking.
Re-framed brief
How can Truth make “Gen Z teenagers and young adults” care about smoking enough to finally end it?
Sharpened audience definition
“Gen Z teenagers” who were the most passionate about taking social action and visibly supporting causes.
Problem identified
After last year’s “Left Swipe Dat” campaign we knew the issue at this point was relevance.
How can we make the target see smoking is killing things they care about and it needs to be finished off for good?
Insight that shed new light
Multiple studies showed smoking has a huge negative effect on household pets.
Cats in homes with a smoker are twice as likely to die of cancer!
Marketplace & cultural understanding
The Gen-Z target loves animals and memes.
Put together, they can’t get enough. It’s what they seek out and it’s the currency they exchange with each other online. Especially Cats.
Cat memes are gold to the target.
A new way of thinking about the product or brand
What if Truth wasn’t just about saving people, but our furry and feathered friends too?
What would happen to “Cat Memes” if smoking killed all the cats!?!
Finish it, because if cats die, the internet dies.
Work the brief inspired
Finish It: #Catmaggedon
At the height of the social media cat video meme obsession, Truth asks the audience “what the world would be like without cat videos?”
It was a Gen-Z call to action to share and make content tagged with #Catmaggedon to save the cats and the internet itself.
The campaign featured provocative videos, large scale social programs including a Live Kitten Stream on Twitch, partnerships with Instagram cat celebrities (yeah, that’s a thing), the D2C sale of #Catmaggedon merch, experiential marketing at popular music and sports events and high composition TV events like the MTV Music Awards.
Results
#CATmageddon was the Truth Initiative most viewed ad campaign ever.
#CATmageddon had a live audience of 655,000 people—more than twice the typical audience on Twitch.
The campaign was covered as entertainment by People, NPR, Fortune and others.
More than 250 million people watched the videos generating 10’s millions of dollars in earned media value to the Truth Initiative.
Most importantly, the measured performance against the objective - teens who saw #Catmaggedon content were 16% more likely to respond that they would not smoke and if a teen saw content three or more times, the number jumped to more than 34 percent!
#Catmaggedon won a 2017 Effie, IAC and Shorty Social Award.