Climate change is a complex issue dominated by science and statistics, making it hard for people to stay engaged.

With 70% of Millennials checking weather on a daily basis, and their obsession with celebrity we knew we had an opportunity to go beyond a public service announcement - leveraging the influence of Katy Perry - to deliver a surprising and unique climate report to the world.

The Katy Perry Weather Report transformed ‘the weather’ into a rallying cry around the need to protect children from the immediate effects of climate change (food, water, disease, weather).

In contrast to the current conversation, our approach introduced a powerful and positive emotion that inspires a generation to take action and restore the balance: To #FightUnfair.

Armed with a creative asset that would resonate strategically with our target audience, we looked into how to drive maximum exposure – with zero media spend.

Millennials consume news through a blend of actively seeking and discovering – with 88% getting news from Facebook regularly, 85% YouTube, and 50% Instagram1.

We strategically leveraged Perry’s colossal Twitter following of over 80 million users, launching with a teaser Tweet. Content was then distributed on UNICEF channels – YouTube, Facebook – and Perry’s Facebook and Instagram profiles with a call to action to share.

The campaign was further amplified across online weather channels, live TV, and at COP 21 “Earth to Paris” events, as well as in green spaces used for preparation and interviews for notable speakers like Ban Ki Moon, John Kerry, Deepak Chopra, and Jane Goodall.

We changed the conversation around climate change; putting children at the core and shifted the impact from future to an immediate focus. This was clearly evident by the majority of media coverage focusing on the impact on children today vs the usual statically led facts about a distant future.

Katy Perry’s tweet to share the video was retweeted over 4,000x, garnering over 212,000 impressions. The campaign was launched and shared on social media with Perry’s amplification reaching 21k Facebook likes and 467k Instagram likes?. With a total of zero dollars spend on media, the campaign realized over 193,000 organic views.

Katy Perry’s special weather report generated much interest, with 137,293,710 online impressions, as a result of being featured across channels such as Reuters, The Weather Channel, Teen Vogue, Huffington post, FoxNews, MSNBC, La Presse among others.

The Katy Perry Weather Forecast is now UNICEF’s highest ever-viewed video on Climate Change.