If you want a job in America 89% of businesses require you to have a GED diploma, yet 35m Americans don’t have one. Before we could get these people back into the workplace, we had to get them back into the classroom. We had to find a way to motivate them. Daniel-san had Mr Miyagi to motivate him. Rocky had Micky. But who do these high school drop outs have? We knew you couldn’t talk to all these people with one voice, so we set up the GED pep talk centre and had 13 voices, so everyone could find a voice that would motivate them.

We approached a number of celebrities, ranging in style from gentle (Debra Jo Rupp, famous from 'That 70's Show') all the way up to the extreme end of the scale (Danny Trejo, famous for being a bad ass from films like 'Machete', 'Heat' and, funnily enough, 'Bad Ass'), as some people needed more motivation than others.

You can get a face-to-face pep talk online, or you can also call a hotline and use the numbers on your key pad to choose a level of pep talk. We also set up a specialised text service where by you can text the name of a celebrity pep talker and they will call you back with a pep talk. Posters, TV commercials, radio, online banners and a PR push all directed people to the Pep talk centre.

The campaign broke across every media platform possible to create maximum impact. Outdoor posters, TV and radio commercials, social media, digital, earned media and, most importantly, word of mouth, all led potential GED students to a bespoke website where they would find the GED Pep Talk Centre. Here they could select a level of pep talk, ranging from level 1 ‘Gentle’, for people who just needed a little encouragement, all the way up to level 13 ‘Extreme’, for people who needed a lot of persuading. This gave them the motivation they needed to sign up for free GED classes in their area.We were also mindful to select celebrities who already had huge social media followings, so that when the campaign broke, they could spread the word to an audience who were already listening.

We have obtained a total of more than $40m in donated media since the launch of our campaign. This is way above other well-performing Ad Council campaigns. We have driven more than 2m (2,430,346) unique visitors to our website since launch.And we have generated more than 7,359,283 page views. In addition to website visits, 38,371 potential students called our hotline for more information about getting their GED Diploma. That’s 29% higher than the initial estimate of 18,000 calls per year. (Source: ProLiteracy National Literacy, Directory Referral Partnership.) The texting service was used 5,000 times in the first week of launch.A total of 97 news stations highlighted our campaign within the first week of launch. With a 34% sign up rate, it’s evident that our campaign was persuasive in its ability to drive potential students to the website.