ACS Publications is the scholarly publishing division of the nonprofit American Chemical Society. We seek to publish the best chemistry-related research in our 50+ peer-reviewed journals to help communicate and advance scientific discoveries and innovation. To accomplish this goal, we need to increase the number of submissions of research articles to the journals. To influence article submissions by the global scientific community, we wanted our brand campaign to forge a stronger emotional connection between authors and ACS journals.
At the center of the "Personal Stories of Discovery" branding campaign is a series of 3-minute videos designed to show how ACS Publications shares key values with the global research community it serves. These values include discovery, diversity, mentorship, and the drive to solve important global challenges. The campaign highlights these shared values as exemplified by the research and backstories of the 9 scientists featured in the videos.
The research interests of these scientists aligns with the topics covered by the more than 50 journals of the ACS, which are at the interface of chemistry and diverse fields such as materials science, energy research, drug development, bioengineering, and neuroscience. The campaign utilized highly detailed audience profiles, segments, keywords, and geographic targeting to match specific videos in the series with relevant audiences.
Using distinctive designs and the unifying tagline "Behind every article, there's a personal story of discovery," promotional assets created included print and web ads, emails, native advertising, outdoor media, exhibit booth graphics, programmatic audio and video ads, and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This multi-touch media strategy effectively drove awareness and views of the 9 videos in the series, which can be found on a special landing page at ACSstories.org.
The brand campaign received more than 15M total impressions and more than 500K video views. Most important, ACS Publications journals received a 14% increase in article submissions during the period in which the campaign has run.
