We found an issue most Australians can identify with… melanoma… and put Watson to work.

Melanoma kills 1 Australian every 6 hours. It is our deadliest skin cancer but, ironically, one of the easiest to treat… survival rates can top 98%. The key is identifying melanoma early.

In partnership with the Melanoma Institute and Molemap, IBM Research worked to help skin cancer experts detect melanoma sooner and more accurately.

How accurately?

Currently clinicians can successfully detect melanoma at about 60% with the naked eye. That improves to 80%+ through dermoscopy. The target for IBM Watson? 91% accuracy. That’s 13,000 lives every year that could be directly affected.

But training Artificial Intelligence takes data.

So we enlisted the help of everyday Australians to donate their data – their personal experiences of melanoma. That way they weren’t just helping us beat melanoma – they were helping us outthink it.

Melanoma doesn’t discriminate.

It affects everyone the same. Men and women. Young and old. Famous and unknown. Different ethnicities and religions. So our executions featuring a range of Australian faces and voices.

We started the social conversation with video survival stories from Australian influencers:

- Mack Horton… Olympic Gold Medal Swimmer

- Deborah Hutton… Media personality

- ‘Deano’, ‘Harries’ and ‘Kerrbox’… Lifeguards featured on ‘Bondi Rescue’ TV Show

Each celebrity shared their video and tagged other famous Australian melanoma survivors.

This was followed by pre-roll video, display and print advertising featuring eight everyday Australians. In the week before the event we ran radio spots featuring three melanoma stories and the voice of Watson himself asking listeners to join in, with extra campaign participation driven by live reads.

And finally Bondi Surf Bathers’ Lifesaving Club, the venue for the activation, was dressed in the livery of IBM Outthink Melanoma.

For a brand with little relevance to the average Australian, we attracted serious interest amongst the general public.

Every benchmark was smashed:

- Increased YoY social reach by 230%.

- Garnered a staggering 4.88M in social engagements.

- 42% engagement rate on paid social - 570% above industry benchmarks.

- Influencer videos generated 4.25 million views

- Bondi Beach event was shared as the day’s top event on high traffic sites EventFinda and Experience Sydney

- A phenomenal ROI of 3,241% across paid social investment.

Brand perception numbers jumped with:

- 3.8% uplift in perception of IBM as an innovative brand (target was 2%) – the highest innovation score in 10 years.

- 3.3% uplift in positive brand sentiment (target was 1%).

But this was about saving lives. And 70 people who met Watson were referred for further melanoma testing. That is, potentially, 70 lives which may have been saved.