WE NEEDED TO MAKE ENERGY MORE RELEVANT FOR THE ENERGY INFLUENCERS OF THE FUTURE.
One of Shell’s goals is to harness the power of collaboration – to pioneer more and cleaner energy solutions. The brand has supported a whole range of energy projects and ideas: creating light from gravity, capturing kinetic energy from
footsteps and generating energy from coffee waste, to name but three.
However, most consumers still view Shell as a traditional oil company.
Our brief was to reach out to Energy Engaged Millennials (EEM); a new audience. They had less entrenched opinions of the energy industry, and as future energy influencers and policymakers, we wanted to ensure they understood and appreciated what Shell was doing.

The aim was to generate interest and transform Shell’s reputation, from a company that feels like part of yesterday – a traditional oil company – to a company that is actively addressing future energy needs.
We identified two key challenges:

First, although the audience was defined as ‘energy engaged’, research showed that they were uneasy around the subject of energy and found it to be too distant and complex to truly engage with.

In a nutshell, no-one wakes up in the morning thinking about ‘energy’. We needed to make energy more exciting and relevant.

Second, Edelman business trust data showed a widening trust gap between an informed public and the general population. If being more informed led to greater trust, we couldn’t just talk about what we were doing. We needed to showcase bright energy ideas in action; no theory or pipe dreams.

SHELL NEEDED A RADICALLY NEW APPROACH TO CONTENT AND DISTRIBUTION TO REACH OUR INFLUENCERS.
Reaching out to a new audience required Shell to dramatically rethink its communications.

First, we needed to present a wide range of evidence to help our EEM audience reappraise the brand. Second, we needed to go beyond traditional advertising. Influencers and real-life events and activations had more impact with
this audience.

Finally, we needed to put people first. Our target were more likely to listen if they could see the positive impact on people’s lives.

Our strategic solution was to develop “Best Day of My Life” – a positive, digital and events-focused program that would give us the platform we needed to engage with our younger target.

To ensure we engaged rather than interrupted, we would focus on ‘in-situ’ comms – from native publisher content, to in-feed on social platforms, to physical locations. The days of driving our audience to a corporate hub were over; previous campaign analysis showed that reaching our audience in-situ was seven times as effective as a central hub. Content would showcase a wide range of bright energy ideas in action, highlighting the human benefits of these initiatives. To make energy more exciting, we would leverage a mainstream, accessible and unifying passion point for the EEM audience, as defined by audience research across key markets – music.

Building on learnings from previous campaigns, we saw that content featuring recognizable influencers aligned with Shell’s initiatives had delivered more views, reach and social engagement than any other content.

This time, we would take our influencer approach to a new level, assembling a collective of famous, relevant musical artists from key Shell markets, to demonstrate the power of collaboration, including Jennifer Hudson (US), Pixie Lott (UK), Luan Santana (Brazil) and Tan Weiwei (China).

WE CREATED THE BIGGEST BRAND HIT OF THE YEAR WITH NEARLY 400 MILLION VIEWS.

The results were incredible: Shell became the number one brand globally in the AdAge viral video chart, and the ninth most shared brand video in the world. Since launching in September, Best Day Of My Life has been viewed 396 million times.

Shell topped the 2016 viral video charts, beating Nike’s Euro 2016 campaign and the John Lewis Xmas ad (among others). The video achieved more than 4.1m shares.

Shell’s reputation has been transformed; the audience exposed to Best Day Of My Life content were 80% more likely to view Shell as actively addressing future energy needs.

The same exposed audience were more than three times as likely to view Shell as actively addressing future energy needs, compared to our nearest competitors (BP and ExxonMobil).

We didn’t create an ad campaign. We created an unmissable, global entertainment event; one that was powered and informed by kinetic tiles, roadside wind turbines, solar technology and energy-efficient mobility.