Every 36 minutes a child is diagnosed with cancer in the United States. While nearly 80% of cancer in children can be cured, pediatric cancer remains the leading disease-related cause of childhood mortality.

Hyundai Hope on Wheels funded $14.1 million towards innovative pediatric cancer research in 2018 alone. On the eve of its 20th year, Hyundai Hope on Wheels was ready to do even more by finding a unique new way to increase awareness and drive donations.

Hyundai created a tag-team partnership with WWE during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Once known for over-the-top violence for adult audiences, WWE has shifted to an era of diversity, positivity and teamwork for family viewing.

As its programming evolved, so has its audience. WWE now boasts more than 1 billion social media followers (and is considered more popular than many US sports leagues). It is also one of the only TV programs consistently delivering higher than a 1.0 rating 52 weeks a year and is popular with our target audience: men ages 18-54. Shockingly, WWE exceeded all criteria that Hyundai Hope on Wheels was looking for in scale, engagement and passion.

Using live event activations, custom integrations, and custom content production, Hyundai tapped into WWE's audience across the WWE Network, digital and social media. Together, their efforts raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and inspired greater hope for kids with cancer.

Our research showed men tend to make charitable gifts when an appeal frames the donation in the man's self-interest. WWE's untapped audience represented a huge donation pool... if we could only make the cause relatable.

Given the strong emotional connection many men have to sports, we considered several athletic partnerships before being surprised to find many shared values with WWE. It turns out, WWE is also committed to childhood cancer research. This instant connection, combined with WWE's loyal male audience, was all we needed to reach our common goal.

It was critical that we created authentic WWE-approved content in order to connect with their audience. That meant usurping traditional channels and working directly with WWE's brain trust—celebrity wrestlers Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. Simply partnering WWE Superstars with cancer survivors felt too contrived though. Tripe H actually cracked the insight we needed, saying: “They aren’t cancer survivors. They are Champions!”

Across four American cities—New Orleans, Dallas, Denver and Columbus— hundreds of thousands of WWE fanatics were introduced to our inspiring "Cancer Champions" in a manner befitting the WWE Champion of the World.

Two honorees named Carter Gates and Elizabeth Blair were awarded Championship Belts at the Denver Live Event as the crowd showered them with chants of “YOU DESERVE IT!” This chill-inducing moment was broadcast to millions of people across the world during the September 24th episode of WWE Raw.

After Hyundai Hope on Wheels presented a check for $200,000 for cancer research, WWE encouraged fans to take action and donate online or via social media. This was a full-scale media blitz—content integration, digital, social and live events at 4 WWE markets throughout the month.

The partnership was a major success, delivering over 232MM impressions and was aided by 16 WWE Superstars who felt compelled to go above and beyond their contractual obligations and spread the message on social media.

Across social media platforms, the Monday Night Raw Live Event generated 1,277 Twitter interactions per minute, adding up to more than 15K Twitter interactions, making the HHOW segment the most talked about WWE event in all of 2018.

Given the response to the program, WWE created recaps of Carter and Elizabeth's coronation and the videos garnered 1.7MM+ views, over 5 times the ingoing estimate. Social media posts promoting the videos generated 151MM+ impressions.

While not the original intent of the program, research also showed that 21% of those who recalled the Hyundai brand on WWE television/digital/live events, had a "much better" or "better" opinion of the Hyundai brand.