READ TO ME

Short List
TitleREAD TO ME
BrandCHANGE ONE LIFE (CHARITABLE FOUNDATION)
Product/ServiceONLINE CHANNELS WITH AUDIO BOOKS COLLECTION FOR ORPHANS AND OTHER KIDS
Category C03. Use of Social Platforms
Entrant Y&R Moscow, RUSSIA
Idea Creation Y&R Moscow, RUSSIA
Production AC PRODUCTION Moscow, RUSSIA
Production 2 ADSERVICE Moscow, RUSSIA
Production 3 ADSERVICE Moscow, RUSSIA
Additional Company A.ZVUKA Moscow, RUSSIA
Credits
Name Company Position
Federico Fanti Y&R Moscow Executive Creative Director
Marco Cremona Y&R Moscow Executive Creative Director
Luis Tauffer Y&R Moscow Executive Creative Director
Jaime Mandelbaum Y&R Europe Chief Creative Officer
Sergey Balabonin Y&R Moscow Creative Group Head
Kirill Novikov Y&R Moscow Senior Art Director
Tatiana Vasilieva Y&R Moscow Senior Art Director
Tatiana Bazhan Y&R Moscow Senior Copywriter
Anastasia Koroleva Y&R Moscow Account Director
Natalya Emelyanova Y&R Moscow Senior Account Manager
Irina Averina Y&R Moscow Designer
Roman Borisov Y&R Moscow DOP/ Designer
Inna Alperovich-Chikhladze Y&R Moscow Producer
Kirill Novikov - Director
Yan Yasinsky - DOP
Konstantin Maltsev Azvuka Composer
Yana Seredenko AdService Produser
Ilya Malov AdService Editor
Valentin Borisevich AdService Sound engineer
Anastasiy Mikhailov - Dop

The Campaign

We asked orphan kids who they'd love to read them a story. They came up with names of sports stars, actors, singers and other famous celebrities. Then we approached these celebrities and shoot them while reading the requested stories. This project has been so appreciated on a national level that virtually all of the celebrities eagerly responded to the kids’ reading requests. The reading videos (along with the orphan's video requests and other filmed extra materials) gradually form an online video library of children books – freely available to everyone and ever growing on Read to me Channels on YouTube and OK, one of the biggest social networks in Russia, the equivalent of FB.

Creative Execution

With the help of the ‘Change One Life’ charitable foundation we have asked orphans all over Russia who they'd like to read them a fairy tale. Then we approached these celebrities and shoot them while reading the requested stories. We then published the requests and the reading videos on Russia’s 2 biggest social platforms. Thanks to these platforms, we also started a process of monetization (for the first time in Russia it was used for a social project) that will constantly raise funds to make Russian orphans' lives better.

Results

The ‘Read to me’ channels have more than 21 000 subscribers with very strong engagement (more than 239 497 views, 477 994 minutes of watching time and 20 000 feedbacks). Over 40 celebrities already donated their time and the fairy tales they read have been watched in 106 countries (the latest update) so far. Several children which participated in the project were adopted. This means that we are bringing warmth and happiness way beyond the Russian boarders.

For two main reasons… Because we have made orphan kids the main co-creators of the campaign, thus making them not just beneficiaries, but the true stars of this pro bono initiative. Because we have created a fast-growing online community of celebrities which is becoming a highly crucial and effective tool to engage with the audience and directly influence its behaviour – encouraging them to view reading videos and share the links, to visit the Foundation’s website, to generate a word-of-mouth around the campaign and orphans’ issue in general.

It is crucial for the Foundation to raise massive awareness about its activities and attract potential adopting parents to their website. Reading books to kids is a large emotional territory, which has allowed us to engage mass audiences in a positive way. To reach wider audiences we have decided to employ two of the biggest social platforms in Russia – YouTube for its ability to attract and engage younger crowds and OK, Russia’s second biggest social network, and the one with the biggest number of members who are parents of pre-school and school kids.