In spring 2020, as the U.S. first began to face the challenges of living with coronavirus, Johnson’s® identified the importance of elevating its role of serving the critical needs of new and expecting parents. Pregnancy during a pandemic presents new stressors to moms, dads, and babies— so the brand aimed to create a new COVID resource of trusted information that would help new and expectant mothers (and their partners) feel safer during these alarming times.
The goal was to create authentic, helpful content for new parents while placing Johnson’s® and their products at the center of the reassuring advice and conversations. With titles like “What to pack for the hospital during a pandemic” and “How to support parents-to-be and new parents in the age of COVID-19,” the campaign aimed to drive engagement and intrigue with #InItTogether custom content.
On a macro level, the objective behind #InItTogether was to provide new and expectant mothers with trusted, practical, and useful advice to reduce her stress and anxiety when she needed it most.
#InItTogether targeted a core demographic of women who are expecting or have recently given birth. It was important that the content was inclusive to a multicultural audience, so a premium was placed on casting moms of different backgrounds and geographies--and we explicitly targeted Latinas with Spanish language content.
The speed at which the pandemic has spread and its effects on daily life have led to a deep sense of confusion and anxiety in families. Anxiety among new parents has risen to 72% since the pandemic, vs. 29% previously, which was enhanced by the lack of information available.
We knew that we would need to act quickly to meet the needs and wellbeing of new parents. Therefore, the first content launched in just 5 weeks, rolling out in early May, offering helpful, reassuring resources to uneasy moms and moms-to-be during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic. The content needed to be both helpful material that anxious new parents could trust, and authentic to their unprecedented human experience.
Rather than creating vague ‘inspirational’ content, our goal was to generate content with actual value to moms and expectant mothers that could help reduce their stress levels by empowering them with information they would actually use. Our greatest challenge was ensuring that the content platform wasn’t perceived just as a large-scale advertisement for Johnson’s, but a real resource that families could use for navigating this difficult time.
This high level of authority was backed by the inclusion of motherhood and family experts, with Q&A’s and other resources from OB-GYNs, healthcare workers, and real mothers who had given birth during the pandemic. We drew on the expertise of the full range of the people that mothers and expectant mothers rely on most through challenging and exciting periods, such as giving birth and raising families. We also included plenty of content from the source that mothers trust the most— other mothers, who have gone through experiences that expectant mothers harbor anxiety about, to help alleviate their concerns.
Example articles and videos included:
This custom-built destination and all of the content pieces within were supported by strategic social promotion, aimed at Johnson’s target audience. We drove site traffic through previews of our article and video content primarily through Facebook. We also utilized impactful quotes from the healthcare workers and moms that were interviewed for our campaign, pushing these quotes out across Facebook and Instagram to pique interest in each person’s unique experience and further drive traffic to the site.
All of these resources were designed to reduce the many questions and unknowns facing mothers and expectant mothers during the pandemic. Based on our results, we believe that we were successful.
#InItTogether was a massive success, far exceeding expectations.
The content hub effectively drew in the target audience of new and expecting mothers, surpassing the set benchmark by 288%. Individual content pieces reached lifts at a minimum of 100%.
Content designed to reach Hispanic parents was also effective with an 83% lift over the benchmark.
Our social results were remarkable, achieving on average a +78% Click Through Rate lift for our posts, with a peak lift of +189% compared to publisher benchmark. Meanwhile, our native Social Bytes content achieved an average Engagement Rate lift of +133%, reaching a peak figure of +321% over publisher benchmark.
In a Nielsen branded content study, the campaign proved to have positively impacted key brand metrics. The #InItTogether content generated a significant increase in familiarity (+6 percentage pts.), affinity (+6.), purchase intent (+8), recommendation intent (+7.) and “meets needs” (+5) for Johnson’s® products. Additionally, the custom content positively impacted brand perceptions for products “meeting the highest standards of safety” and “are developed based on superior science”.
Most importantly, we positively impacted our audience’s lives. #InItTogether proved to positively associate Johnson’s® with the following statements:
· +18% lift in “reducing anxiety and understanding consumers’ concerns”
· +13% increase in “helping pregnant moms to feel less stress about the outbreak”
· +12% increase in “helping pregnant moms enjoy their pregnancy fully, even during the outbreak”
#InItTogether positively impacted consumer perceptions of Johnson’s® and reinforced its role as a trusted brand that parents can always count on.
