Objectives

2020 is a year unlike any other. 

And the Class of 2020 is unlike any other. 

Because of this, T-Mobile wanted to give graduates the opportunity to celebrate this important milestone through an experience tailored to this year's graduating class - creating the ultimate cap toss moment virtually on TikTok. T-Mobile also committed $200,000 to support Jobs for America’s Graduates, a national nonprofit helping graduates achieve success - with each cap toss sparking a $5 donation. 

Objectives:

• Drive awareness and brand love through T-Mobile’s support of graduating seniors and their families. 

• Drive meaningful engagements with T-Mobile on social through challenge participation.

• Drive purchase consideration of T-Mobile with the next generation of mobile subscribers.

• Drive awareness of our support of graduating seniors through Jobs for America’s Graduates (JAG)  partnership and donation components.

• Use this moment to kick off our national Un-carrier Jobs Initiative - committing to hire more than 5,000 new employees over the next year in Retail, Customer Care, T-Mobile for Business, Product and Technology (IT), and more. 

Strategy and Execution

Insight: 💬

The tossing of the cap is a graduation tradition where the entire class comes together in celebration. This year, students won’t be able to celebrate physically - so we enabled the same experience digitally/socially. 

Idea: 💡

T-Mobile wanted to celebrate the uniqueness of the Class of 2020 and their achievements during a year unlike any other. We launched the #TossYourCap Hashtag Challenge in May of 2020, bringing the ultimate virtual cap toss to life through TikTok.

How it worked: 🎓

• Leveraged our relationship with DJ Khaled to kickoff the challenge across TikTok, with content on Twitter and Instagram driving challenge awareness. 

• Brought in never-before-experienced music sound (“All I Do Is Win (feat. T-Pain)” by DJ Khaled) to differentiate the challenge and drive incremental participation

• Included a wide swath of talent (DJ Khaled, Dixie D’Amelio, Justin Bieber, Diego Tinoco, Chloe Lukasiak, Kesha, Maggie Thurman, Adam Waheed) to drive challenge participation, awareness and credibility. 

• Promoted the challenge via a prominent banner placement on TikTok’s Discover page and targeted in-feed ads.  

• T-Mobile donated $5 (up to $200,000) for each video posted using #TossYourCap to Jobs for America’s Graduates - a national non-profit dedicated to serving youth and young adults so they graduate from high school and achieve success

Why TikTok: 🎶

TikTok creates an environment designed for users to collaborate and build upon each other’s content. It acts as a creative & cultural incubator, with trends originating on the platform then branching out to other social channels. Users are receptive to what brands can bring to the community as long as their presence adds value to the user’s experience, facilitates creativity.

Proof Points:

• Most downloaded iPhone app in the United States in March 2020, by number of downloads (in millions)

• 2nd most downloaded Android app in the United States as of March 2020, by number of downloads (in millions)

• Most popular mobile social networking apps in the United States as of September 2019, by average session duration (in minutes)

• 2nd most popular mobile social networking app in the United States as of September 2019 (only to Facebook), by user engagement (in minutes per month)

• 80+ average daily in-app minutes 

The #TossYourCap Challenge Step-By-Step 📝

• Open TikTok and head to the Discover page ​

• Click into the T-Mobile hashtag challenge or search for #TossYourCap​

• Find the challenge song (“All I Do Is Win (feat. T-Pain)” by DJ Khaled), click “Use this sound” and get your cap ready! ​

• Lyrics: “Whenever me and Khaled do the remix” ​

  • Do something creative with the hat - an interesting flip, twist of the tassel - and put it on your head​

• Lyrics: “Everybody’s hands go UP”​

•          Toss your cap out of frame and freeze​

• Lyrics: “And they stay there, and they say yeah, and they stay there, up down up down, coz all I do is win, win”​

  • Do your signature dance to the music ​

• Share the video on TikTok with #TossYourCap and @TMobile ​

• Invite your friends to join the challenge!

Results

T-Mobile leveraged strategic partnerships to provide graduates with unique and celebratory content during these unprecedented times as well as opportunities for connection - virtually. In addition, the timely and culturally relevant nature of a graduation initiative allowed T-Mobile to authentically connect with consumers at scale. 

T-Mobile’s inaugural TikTok campaign proved to be a success in driving brand awareness and consideration as well as showcasing our support of graduates across the nation during this critical milestone. The #TossYourCap Challenge clearly resonated with the digitally savvy Gen Z audience on the app with a 94% positive sentiment. T-Mobile quickly hit it’s donation goal of $200,000 for Jobs for America’s Graduates - providing valuable scholarship funding for graduates.  

The #TossYourCap Challenge Results between 5/14-5/31: 

• 1.17B video views

• 490K challenge videos created 

• 342K US creators

• 190M likes generating a 17% engagement rate 

• Earned media coverage across Rolling Stone, PR Week, Ad Week, Telecompaper and more.

Since the campaign launched in May our #TossYourCap challenge page has hit 2.5B views on TikTok! 

Media