Launched in 2020, the Rave To Save is an app by Desperados that turns your dance steps into rewards and donations for a variety of different causes. In 2021, we saw an opportunity to leverage the app in a more pointed fashion, and more specifically, for a community that was being discriminated against on the dance floor - the LGBTQIA+ community. Moreover, we saw that party-goers, in general, value personalisation and purposeful initiatives which was an integral part of the thinking behind the app functionality.

Our experience stemmed from the fact that although the LGBTQIA+ community were initially part of the birth and pioneering of dance music, 84% of them felt like they discriminated against on the dancefloor, ultimately making them feel unsafe. So if the problem was on the dancefloor, it had to be solved on the dancefloor.

The idea is to make the dance floor more inclusive by turning dance steps into donations supporting LGBTQIA+ organizations.

To do so, we leveraged Desperados Rave To Save, an app we created that counts your steps and turns those steps cold hard cash. For every 100 dance steps made, €1 was raised for LGBTQIA+ organizations. The more people danced, the more they helped make the dance floor a little bit more inclusive.

We launched the app in partnership with queer collective PXSSY PALACE, DJ Absolute and Peggy Gou in Ibiza. To boost support for the cause, Desperados matched all donations raised by partygoers.

As a brand that is synonymous with party culture, Desperados set out to create a tool that put a more progressive dance floor in the hands of people everywhere. With this in mind, we aimed to:

Raise awareness around racial and sexual discrimination on the dance floor

Generate app usage and interest

Increase donations for LGBTQIA+-related organisations

Increase our brand power YoY

Once we had developed the app, we needed to get it out into the world and onto dance floors.

We used our sponsored festivals and owned parties to reach our audiences in their dancing moments. Creators helped tell our story and invite participation. We partnered with Vice to raise awareness of the app and program.

To give us additional scale, we developed partnerships with music leaders Beatport and Elrow, and we live-streamed virtual events to reach more audiences more effectively.

With in-app rewards for every step danced, live event step counters aimed to visualise the collective party mission, and exclusive line-ups making every event the hottest ticket in town, we gave Rave To Save a real place in party culture.

From Lagos to Ibiza, our 360º experience harnessed the power of dance with every touch-point inspiring partygoers to download and start dancing.

In total 21,000,000 total steps were taken throughout the campaign resulting in 116,000 Euro donated to Stonewall and other LGBTQ organisations. Additionally, the campaign garnered 530 million media impressions and 480 million in PR reach, demonstrating the power of the idea.

And lastly, overall brand power increased 5% YoY vs last year moving from 5.5 to 6.0. In addition, our brand meaningful index increased from 9.9 basis points from 109 to 119—demonstrating both an impact and resonance with our key audience.