Celebrate and honestly reflect the experience of modern life through the lens of the Black community and Facebook groups.
Black history is being made every day and members of the Black Community are using Facebook Groups to come together in powerful ways. This Black History Month, we celebrated the Groups and individuals who have provided meaningful contributions to the Black Community through our “Lift Every Voice” campaign.
Our goal was to drive awareness of Black History Month by lifting Black voices and accurately representing the strength, pride, love, joy and struggle of the Black community. To acknowledge that no matter how far our culture has come we’ve still got a long (and hopeful) road ahead. We wanted to bring to the forefront that Black History is being made each and every day, and inspire people to help bring positive change. To do this, we looked to the past and took inspiration from the Black National Anthem: “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
The centerpiece of our integrated, social first campaign was an original performance of the Black National Anthem featuring the voices of all-female group June’s Diary and members of real Facebook Groups from the Black community. The full length video debuted on Facebook, and a :60 cutdown first aired on TV nationally during the NBA All Star game. The spot ran 41 times in February across prime programming such as The Neighborhood, Empire, the Today Show, and NCAA College Basketball. Throughout the month of February we followed the video launch with posts featuring our Hiveminds, Unsung Hero Portraits, and launched Social Frames & Stickers for our users to help promote Black History Month. We also ran a series called Letter to my Black History Icon, where Amber’s Closet, Chase Reed, Adrienne Warren, Jordan Alexander, and The Ball Family shared which inspirational Black figure helped them find their voice.
Throughout history and even today, the majority of the stories we hear about black people are told through the lens of white eyes. The result is often that of misunderstanding and misrepresentation; of Black communities and culture being depicted as one dimensional tropes. Realistically, the daily life of the Black community is one of beautiful complexity and nuance. To make sure this body of work captured and articulated the richness of the Black experience, we assembled a diverse internal creative team and collaborated with external talent such as award winning Black director Jason Harper, whose work focuses on telling authentic and deeply personal stories from within the Black community. We were also grateful to have renown external artists and illustrators such as Ade Hogue and Jade Purple Brown help bring this campaign to life. Throughout the creative build we partnered with members of the Black community (internally and externally) to make sure that every piece of work truly lifted Black voices and celebrated Black culture and history in an authentic and meaningful way.
By telling Black stories in our “Lift Every Voice” campaign in an authentic way we believe our message resonated and reinforced our brand belief that people can do more together than alone.
Through our 148M total media impressions, this campaign garnered 505K likes/reactions, 21.8K comments, and 96.8K shares. We also received press coverage from the following publications:
"The new 60-second ad in the More Together campaign will debut during the NBA All-Star Game"
"Black History Month is a time to celebrate the trailblazers who have paved the way for our culture. Facebook is doing its part by creating original content celebrating Black people who are carrying the torch."
"How Facebook Hit the Mark With Its Black History Month Campaign--and You Can Too... Inclusive marketing is no longer just a "nice to do." It is worth investing time in, to figure out how to get it right."
