Hashtag Killer
WATERisLIFE (Non-Profit)
Issue 27 | June 2013
Agency
DDB NY
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Matt Eastwood Executive Creative Director Menno Kluin Frank Cartagena Art Director Sam Shepherd
Production Team
Head of Production Ed Zazzera Producer Lindsey Hutter Designer Juan Carlos Pagan Motion Graphics Gina Lin Zeynep Aydogmus Editors Alec Helm Melanie Meditz Director Alec Helm
Date
October 2012
Background
WATERisLIFE is a charity dedicated to providing ‘clean water to those in need’. The ‘Hashtag Killer’ campaign set to the ironic #FirstWorldProblems meme in which the privileged middle-classes tweeted about the hazards of everyday life.
Like what a burden it was not to have heated leather seats in the car.
Or how difficult it was to remember the maid’s last name.
Idea
The idea was to show that even though the tweets were self-mocking, they demonstrated a lack of sensitivity towards some of the problems
An anthem commercial was made gathering various ‘first world problem’ tweets and then asking people in Haiti to recite them.
But perhaps even more effective was the campaign’s series of personalized response videos, in which Haitians console those who have used the hashtag on Twitter.
The campaign was launched using only YouTube and Twitter, with @WATERisLIFE serving as the main media channel.
Results
In the weeks following the campaign launch, WATERisLIFE completely hijacked the ‘FirstWorldProblems’ hashtag. Instead of using it to complain, donations. And enough donations came in to provide over one million days of clean water to those in need.
The anthem video alone has reached over 3 million cumulative views and the campaign was featured in every major news outlet, including Time Magazine, CNN, BBC, Forbes, The Guardian and many more.
YouTube subscribers increased over 520% and Twitter followers over 34%.
Our Thoughts
It is the personalised responses which make this idea so strong, using Twitter to drive traffic to WATERisLIFE’s YouTube channel, where one video response from a have been viewed over 1.5 million times.
Most charities have been showing how appalling the conditions are in Haiti. This
approach assumes the audience knows that already and allows the contrast
to expand in the viewer’s own mind.
There has been a fair amount of controversy about this campaign online with some people seeing the tweets
as ‘faked’, the campaign designed to win awards rather than help Haitians. I would defend the work on the basis that if it helped raise enough money to provide safe drinking water to just one family, then it was worth it.
Whenever you set out to be a good citizen, there will always be someone to challenge your motives. Just ask Bob Geldof.