In America, it’s estimated that 73% of young adults aged 18 to 29 didn’t cast a ballot in 2022. This is a huge demographic of people whose votes could change the outcome of an entire election.
This is where HeadCount comes in. As a non-partisan organization that uses music and digital campaigns to promote participation in democracy and to empower young people to vote, its main goal is to create long-lasting change where voting becomes ingrained in the culture of younger generations.
HeadCount approached global agency Digital Voices, with the aim to drive young people and uninspired audiences to register to vote, update their voter registration status, and check their local ballot. The goal was to reach a mass audience and achieve 100,000 new registrations before the midterm elections and registration deadlines in October 2022.
We designed an Influencer Marketing campaign to engage a Gen Z audience, to run alongside existing celebrity and musician activations HeadCount were running directly with Arianna Grande, Billie Eilish and Harry Styles.
Having strong expertise in the influencer economy allowed us to analyze the gap between young people voting and the lack of informative social content. To encourage a new wave of participation, we partnered with creators to drive change through their platforms. Our strategy was to target macro US creators not directly involved in politics but aligned with HeadCount’s values.
We knew from research that 77% of Gen Z visit YouTube daily and make decisions informed by social media, so to directly connect with a Gen Z audience we designed a cross-platform social strategy across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
Due to the nature of the project, we needed to source creators open to non-profit campaigning at a reduced cost or for free. Our team of expert Campaign Producers found a total of 17 creators (surpassing the target) who aligned with HeadCounts values and had a connection to the campaign mission. Their negotiation skills ensured that the creators would take part at a reduced rate. As the HeadCount campaign focused on exercising your right to representation, we ensured the campaign was inclusive, particularly in terms of race, gender and sexuality.
To generate excitement and drive voter registrations, we needed to include an incentive. We ran a brainstorming session and confirmed exclusive and personalized prizes including customized merchandise, in-person meetups and concert tickets with each integration. We onboarded each creator onto the campaign with a customised creator brief and details of the competition.
Crucial to the campaign was creating a unique Good To Vote landing page for each creator, including prize details and branding. This would ensure effective measurement, high-performance results and drive targeted actions.
Each creator produced a sponsored YouTube video with a 60 seconds integration, alongside supporting content on Instagram and TikTok which included a creative announcement and highlighted the prize and the competition rules. It was important that the content mentioned HeadCount, explained why is it #GoodtoVote and had a visible link to enter.
Although key messaging was included to inform the viewer of HeadCount's mission, creative freedom was at the forefront of the campaign to encourage high engagement and ensure the content aligned with the creator’s audiences and didn’t interrupt their usual viewing.
Creators went live, some of which include SMOSH, ZHC, VSauce and Chad Chad, with content pushing viewers to the personalized landing page link which was tracked. The landing pages were a vital part of the campaign strategy.
The creator's content went live across August, September and October. MatPat produced standout content offering the chance to win an in-person meetup. The sponsored segment was authentically integrated and communicated the personal importance of the mission, representing 27% of total views but driving nearly half of the registrations, demonstrating his influence on conversions.
Our social strategy was to ensure creators were being authentically encouraging, by implementing personal messaging and exciting incentives that generated optimal results.
Our greatest victory was the power to inform and influence young people to vote to have a say in their future.
