Twignature
Amnesty International
Issue 27 | July 2013
Agency
BMF Advertising Melbourne
Creative Team
Art Director: Chris Andrews Copywriter: Callum Fitzhardinge
Production Team
Interactive Director: Simon Murray Technical Director: Mark Ellis, Doug Rathbone Digital Project Manager: Josh Partijo, Lila Tournier . Net Developer: Chris Lo
Other Credits
Executive Creative Director: David Klein Managing Partner: Ricci Meldrum Client Director: Naomi Gorringe Planner: Nicole Rulka Planning Director: Simon McCrudden Account Executive: Seb Neylan
Date
8 March 2013
Background
In March 2013, the United Nations met to negotiate a global arms trade treaty, to stop weapons ending up in the hands of tyrants and child soldiers around the world. In order to reach a meaningful resolution, it was critical they received the support of key world leaders, especially President Obama, who was facing heavy opposition from the NRA. Twignature was launched to capture support for this cause by lobbying President Obama to sign a long overdue arms treaty.
Idea
Signatures are currency for Amnesty International. They are the most powerful weapon Amnesty has to help bring about change. Yet not everyone is an activist; there is a huge ‘silent majority’ who follows Amnesty and its causes, but don’t necessarily act or even know how to show support. The opportunity was to combine the power of Social Media with the power of signatures…. Twitter + Signature = Twignature. Whenever someone retweeted a campaign message from Amnesty, their Twitter handle was automatically converted into a digital signature and added to an online petition. With one click, Twitter users could sign the petition AND spread the word. Twignature took the form of a real-time petition, displaying participants’ Twitter handles as digital signatures online. This allowed Amnesty to track the momentum of a campaign and modify their Twitter activity in response to what was happening offline. By leveraging the reach and immediacy of Twitter, Twignature has enormous potential as a global campaign tool for Amnesty International.
Results
“We couldn’t be much more thrilled with the results” said Jennifer Gmerek, Online Community Manager, Amnesty International USA. Hashtags #Twignature & #MakeObamaSign were trending on Twitter on the launch date 12th March. Almost 6000 Twignatures were captured, exceeding the target by 20%. This resulted in a petition almost 200 feet long. A single tweet captured over 800 Twignatures. The Twignature campaign was supported by key human rights activists globally with Twignatures created by people from over 50 countries. Amnesty USA gained 20,000 new Twitter followers during the campaign period. And…Barack Obama supported the treaty. The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty was approved at the UN general assembly on April 2nd by an overwhelming majority of 154-3, with the US voting ‘YES’.