Title	UNICOIN
Brand	UNICEF SWEDEN & H&M CONSCIOUS FOUNDATION
Product/Service	NGO
Category	B01. Use of Digital Advertising in a Promotional Campaign
PR Agency	EDELMAN DEPORTIVO Stockholm, SWEDEN
Entrant Company	EDELMAN DEPORTIVO Stockholm, SWEDEN

The Brief

It is difficult to get attention for programs changing children’s future when the world is facing acute crisis and catastrophes. What do get attention, though, is crypto currencies. As children have no access to money, their value exchange is gifting drawings. By inventing a new world currency ‘the unicoin’ we created the first currency fueled by children’s artistic imagination. The unicoin enables children to help those that need it the most.

Campaign Success

We produced a campaign site, where the drawings could be uploaded and exchanged into unicoins. We put a lot of effort in making the activation part easy and rewarding so that children could really understand how they were helping others. They could see the journey of their drawings, how their actual coins appear after uploading the drawings, and how this converted into materials . H&M Conscious Foundation contributed to school material for each unicoin, and UNICEF made sure that the investments ended up where they were needed the most. We launched the site as planned, June 11th, together with a film to raise awareness of the new currency in 12 key markets. The film was made in a financial news show format, but from a child’s perspective. The media strategy included…We did a major outreach to media and bloggers and activation spread way beyond our campaign site: H&M stores, Museums and nursing schools arranged their own drawing initiatives, which amplified the campaign even further.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Children from all over the world, with their parents supervision uploaded hundreds and hundreds of drawings, shared thousands of times. Children were asked to draw their future, which tied their art to the importance of early childhood development leaving an important message for future generations. Our new currency and the cooperation between UNICEF and H&M Conscious Foundation was highlighted in 100 publications, including news, technology and lifestyle titles. With earned media alone, our activation campaign reached 200 million people in earned and traditional media, to an estimated advertising value of 5MUSD. The campaign resulted in over 20,000 educational materials being provided to children in developing countries. By inventing a new world currency based on children’s activation, adults were forced to open their eyes to the issue of early childhood development. More children will now get the chance to reach their dreams, thanks to other children sharing their´s.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Our new currency, the Unicoin, was specifically designed for immediate activation: Children made drawings, together with their parents, and uploaded them on our campaign site to exchange them for Unicoins. Every Unicoin ensured investment in school materials for other children in need. Both the currency in itself and the campaign site were designed to optimize the earned media results from the promotional campaign – both in terms of sharing the site and drawings and editorial wise. At the end it was a campaign built on activation in a way too interesting not to share with others.