Ogilvy Social.Lab, &Co. and the European Parliament convincing more voters: that deserves an Effie
On January 14, the “Choose Your Future” campaign developed for the 2019 European Elections received a bronze Effie in the category “Government, Institutional & Recruitment”.
Since the first European Elections in 1979, the voter turnout had been declined with every subsequent election. With Brexit, the rise of fake news, populism and nationalism, it was time to remind the more than 400 million European voters that their vote matters. That’s why, in 2019, the European Parliament tasked Ogilvy Social.Lab with launching a social media campaign aimed at the citizens of the 28 EU member states. The message: "Choose Your Future. Take control of your own future and vote”.
Targeting voters in 28 countries is a challenge in itself. But the biggest challenge was that, 6 weeks before the launch of the campaign, Facebook issued new conditions related to political campaigns. From now on, such campaigns had to be run from the country they were targeting. In other words, the team in Brussels could no longer manage the pan-European campaign on its own.
However, Ogilvy Social.Lab did not let itself be thrown off balance. Thanks to its network and that of the WPP group, the agency was able to deploy its virtually unique Belgian know-how by designating 28 campaign managers across Europe. They got intensive training in order to carry out the new Facebook procedures, which had never been tested before, to perfection.
The campaign appeared online on time everywhere. So this turbulent story ended well after all. And it also marked the beginning of a new story, with the European Parliament asking the agency to develop 12 new pan-European campaigns for specific voter groups.
Ogilvy Social.Lab eventually launched 48 campaigns in 28 countries with a media budget of € 7.6 M. The result: 1.8 billion impressions, 135 million video views and 600,000 interactions on social media. And above all, for the first time, the overall turnout at the European Elections increased to 50.66%.
A great electoral success for this collaboration between the European Parliament, Ogilvy Social.Lab and its network of colleagues.
