The BallotBriefcase is Hollywood's hottest diva and is making waves on Snapchat. It embarked on a journey across the US, making celebrity appearances, signing autographs, posing for photo opps, mobilizing employees to bring awareness to PwC's 82 year involvement in the Academy Awards. Thousands of our people have rallied around the BallotBriefcase in person, on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to join its journey as it travels across the country on the road to the Oscars. In addition to living a fabulous celebrity lifestyle, the BallotBriefcase is responsible for carrying the winning Oscar ballot nominations to the Academy Awards on February 28th.

GOALS/OBJECTIVES

We had three goals and objectives in mind when planning the campaign:

1. Increase external visibility around PwC's efforts and activities related to the Oscars

2. Reposition the brand of the firm to appeal to a younger talent demographic

3. Activate PwC's employee population to create buzz and generate excitement

One of the primary target audience demographics for Oscars viewing is the millennial population. More than 80% of our 200,000+ staff are millennials. Our goal was to create a modern and savvy campaign to tap into that population with the use of Snapchat to generate buzz internally and increase visibility externally around the firm's involvement with the Academy Awards.

Utilize the Briefcase as the campaign centerpiece

At last year's Academy Awards, the Briefcase played a role in the show. Neil Patrick Harris used it as a prop for a magic trick, and it generated some organic buzz on social media. We decided to tap into that organic pickup and utilize the Briefcase as the centerpiece of our campaign.

Launch a Snapchat handle for the Briefcase

To tap into the millenial population we chose Snapchat as the primary platform. In order to reposition the brand, we intentionally did not include "PwC" in the Snapchat username, allowing the Briefcase to stand on its own. The platform allowed us to share the journey in real-time. Daily, the Briefcase shared footage of its life, adventures, and encounters with its fans. It also shared facts about the Oscars balloting process.

Give the Briefcase a personality

We positioned the Briefcase as a sassy Hollywood diva to bring a sense of humor to our campaign. A unique and engaging personality was essential to our brand repositioning efforts. By personifying the Briefcase, we had an opportunity to speak with an authentic and conversational tone of voice. This also allowed the Briefcase to reply to engagement from fans and followers on Snapchat. As an inanimate object, the Briefcase was free from the some of the personal barriers our human spokespeople often have when using social media to speak on behalf of the firm.

Send the Briefcase on a journey

In the six weeks leading up to the Oscars, the Briefcase embarked on a national tour. The Briefcase stopped in six cities, made "celebrity" appearances at PwC offices, did some sightseeing, and made puns about its fabulous Hollywood lifestyle. During the office appearances, the Briefcase engaged in "meet & greets" where employees had an opportunity to "meet" the Briefcase and take a photo. Employees shared those photos on their personal social networks, significantly increasing reach and impact.

Cross-promote

The BallotBriefcase Snapchat handle was cross-promoted across PwC branded social properties to build followers. We created supporting images, teaser videos, and Twitter icons and banners to announce the channel launch and share the campaign across channels. We featured the launch on the PwC.com homepage and worked the Briefcase campaign into the PwC Oscars website, implementing a social media aggregation hub to capture images shared by our employees and Briefcase fans.

Mitigate Risk

As a risk averse firm that operates in the regulated financial services industry, this campaign was unprecedented. The launch of a Snapchat handle was initially avoided, as its "real-time" nature was unappealing from a risk perspective. We addressed that by ensuring a member of the social media team accompanied the Briefcase at all times. This allowed us to maintain a consistent tone of voice, making our channel more credible and authentic.

Increase visibility around PwC's involvement with the Oscars

• On Twitter, the BallotBriefcase campaign increased our potential impressions by 136x compared to campaigning around the Oscars that did not include the briefcase
• In the first three weeks of the campaign: 1,062 mentions on Twitter (12.3 million impressions), 406 mentions on Instagram (126K impressions) and growing
• Organic pickup from external influencers mentioning the BallotBriefcase campaign

Reposition the brand of the firm

• In the first two weeks, our Snap Story increased to over 700 views, and continues to grow
• We're averaging 8-10 direct outreach Snaps per day from followers and employees across the US and Globally
• During the launch of Snapchat, followers on other firm branded channels have increased above average growth rate
• Feedback from meet & greets:
  • "Is this really the briefcase from Snapchat!?"
  • "This is so cool! I watch it with my kids!"
  • "I'm living vicariously through the BallotBriefcase"
  • "I'm so excited to hold the briefcase. Best day of my life!"

Activate PwC Employees around PwC's involvement with the Oscars

• Over 2,000 employees from offices in 6 different cities have waited in line upwards of 45 minutes to meet the BallotBriefcase
• Employees tag their friends and other PwC colleagues in photos and comments on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter to share their excitement over the BallotBriefcase campaign
• Consistent internal outreach from PwC teams globally regarding the briefcase campaign on Snapchat