#MyRoots
Campaign
Insight
Black History means different things for different people, it’s not just about famous/infamous historical events or people – it’s about culture, identity and how that informs our present.
Idea
Create an integrated campaign that gets users from our Black community, to share and celebrate their Roots – whether that be professional, cultural, historical or any other definition – whilst acting as a source of discovery & education for all users.
Activation
As this was TikTok UK’s first activation/campaign for Black History Month, we wanted to ensure the level of impact for the campaign was high, so we planned for a month long execution – working mainly on digital activations, with offline activations coming in the form of OOH ads. Across the month, we had weekly activations centred around four specific topics;
Week 1 – Fashion, beauty & lifestyle
Week 2 – Arts and Culture
Week 3 – Entrepreneurship, careers & education
Week 4 – Music & entertainment
To highlight this, we chose 5 incredible Black TikTok Creators to be at the forefront of the campaign; @michaeldapaah_, @catburnss, @jeremylynch, @itslilyrose & @shericebanton.
Hero Film
To launch our campaign, we produced a hero film introducing our Creators, sharing their stories and their content with the masses. This kicked off on October 1st, running across TikTok’s owned media channels and other paid media.
To drive further impact across the month, we produced 4 mini films that launched our weekly content categories – highlighting specific Creators inline with some of the content they’re recognised for.
Week 1
Fashion, Beauty & Lifestyle
Week 2
Arts & Culture
Week 3
Entrepreneurship, Careers & Education
Week 4
Music & Entertainment
OOH
In tandem with the launch of our digital campaign, we also launched our OOH campaign across 190 sites nationwide; with our 5 key creators featured across the creative. We also used this opportunity to collaborate with mural artist, Linnet Rubaya, to create unique mural pieces that were present throughout the month in London’s Camden & Peckham.
Live Streams
Through out the month, we hosted live stream panels to discuss important talking topics including; Black Hair & Beauty, Mental Health in the Black Community, British Comedy, and more, whilst also having spotlights on gaming and music.
We were joined by some of the biggest and brightest people from the community, such as; Munya Chawawa, KSI, Dawn Butler MP, and June Sarpong to name a few.
TikTok Content Programming
For our in-app activity, we launched the #myroots hashtag challenge on TikTok where we asked Creators to celebrate their roots and cultures by sharing what #myroots meant to them. Over the first 7 days of the challenge, we garnered over 13 million video views, with over 5,000 pieces of user generated content created.
We also partnered with a number of Black British music artists to create curated guest playlists for users to create content, including the likes of Arlo Parks, Stefflon Don, and UK chart topper, Headie One.
Wrap up Film
To culminate all of our activity, we put together one final film – highlighting our entire activation for Black History Month 2020.
Media Coverage
AdWeek | Campaign | Dazed | Mail Online | Metro | Mobile Marketing | The Drum | Dazed
Results
The campaign as a whole was incredibly successful. With our ATL activation, we were able to reach over 9 million people based in the UK, whilst our online executions totalled an amazing +91 million video views and over 10,000 pieces of user generated content.
Credits
Creative: Daniel Obichukwu, Ary Arasen
Design: Caspar Williamson
Director: Caleb Femi
Music: MARL of Carly & MARL
Producer: Angela Gillespie
Photographer: Aiden Harmitt-Williams
Post Production: Unit Studios
Mural Artist: Linnet Rubaya