To get as many people as possible to connect with the cause, we created a familiar way for them to lend their voices to stories of real civilians in conflict. Working closely with Facebook, we created the very first Live Camera Effect filter that acted as a teleprompter feeding in real stories of victims for global users to tell and share. At launch, Facebook users could easily activate the filter, which applied our campaign effect and then instructed them to read a script of a real firsthand account of a civilians in conflict. The filter was developed specifically for Facebook Live so that the video would begin to stream immediately upon recording, capturing real reactions from our storytellers. The last line of the teleprompter summarized the cause clearly explaining the campaign’s mission. We then prompted viewers to record their own, creating a wider network of global citizens spreading the word.

The Not A Target Live Camera Effects filter went live 24 hours before World Humanitarian Day and was easily available through Facebook. The UN officially kicked off the initiative by posting a video of then UN Under-Secretary-General of Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien reading a story from the teleprompter. The post encouraged Facebook users to also spread the message by creating their own videos, and in parallel, paid posts targeted users with a direct link to act and sign a petition. The full experience leveraged the entirety of Facebook’s mobile platform powerful tools to create a truly frictionless transition from seeing a Live Camera Effect filter of people lending their voices to creating your own and sharing it, further expanding reach.

The campaign collectively generated 2.5 million total social media engagements in just one week, with 222,000 conversations about the cause and how critical it is for the UN to effect change. Lastly, while the Live Camera Effect filter focused on new video generation and not on petition signatures, the UN still gathered close to 27,000 petition signatures from global citizens to present to UN stakeholders.