Over the past century, we've seen our country undergo the most radical technological advancements, but the high school experience has remained virtually unchanged. We've gone from a Model T to a Tesla, from a switchboard to a smartphone, all while the high school learning model has stayed frozen in time.
Recognizing the need for change, XQ set out to spark a nationwide movement to rethink high school. XQ Super School Live began with an integrated digital and social media campaign and culminated in a live television event on September 8, 2017 that aired across America's four major broadcast channels: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
The goal of the XQ Super School Live campaign was to start a conversation around reimagining high school by connecting with parents, teachers and students on digital platforms and through the television special. In short, the XQ Super School Live campaign sought to inform, inspire, and activate America to join the XQ community and #RethinkHighSchool together.
To achieve our goal of mobilizing audiences across the country, we launched a video-first campaign across major social channels to spark conversation and drive tune-in to the live special. The campaign drove conversation through custom content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat that emphasized the importance of education and illustrated the need to revolutionize learning.
On social, we invited viewers to learn about the current state of education with a series of infographics that presented hard-hitting facts, along with split-screen images that showed the startling similarities between classrooms of the past and those of the present day. Colorful illustrations and hand-drawn fonts spoke to the possibility of an imaginative, future-focused high school experience, inspiring our audience to think about creative solutions to outdated processes.
Using the hashtag #ThanksForTeachingMe we shared celebrities' stories of the people who had inspired them to learn. We also encouraged viewers to celebrate their own teachers and mentors by sharing their mentorship stories with the hashtag on social. In developing a two-way conversation with fans, we motivated and empowered them to get involved by tuning into the XQ Super School Live Show and taking action in their communities.
To connect and empower teens we tapped into the social media influencers that already are inspiring them - Dytto and Jorge Diaz - to host a live one-hour red carpet pre-show, which streamed across Facebook, YouTube and Periscope. Leveraging the built-in fandoms of these creators, we inspired a sense of community and amplified the campaign's reach. A behind-the-scenes Instagram story gave fans an exclusive look at the red carpet experience.
During the live television special, artists, comedians, and actors like Tom Hanks and Justin Timberlake took to the stage to invite America to rethink the formula for education. Event attendees shared photos using a custom Snapchat geofilter, and throughout the broadcast we utilized social channels by leveraging the hashtag #XQLive for an engaging, second-screen experience, releasing exclusive content and communicating with viewers in real-time.
On September 8, the day of the live broadcast, XQ generated 695k total impressions, 15.5k engagements, and 12.2k video views on owned social channels. Dytto's channels saw an additional reach of 6M. On Twitter, #XQLive trended at #1 in the United States and #4 worldwide. The overall social campaign resulted in 30.8M impressions, nearly 100k engagements, and 4.2M video views, with a substantial increase in followers on the XQ handles.
Most importantly, the XQ Initiative sparked a nationwide conversation, bridging entertainers with educators, parents, and students to open up the crucial dialogue surrounding the relevance of today's high school experience.
