Today, more than 91 million children in MEA are unregistered. In the absence of a birth certificate, they stand to be denied basic human rights, needs and protection. While the consequences of unregistered births are severe, awareness of the issue is worryingly low. Johnson’s Baby wanted to highlight the issue and use its global leadership position to create positive and lasting change in the lives of unregistered children. In partnership with Save the Children, Johnson’s Baby established a registration program in Ethiopia and Lebanon to raise awareness among affected parents of the need and process of registering their children. In addition, we also aided in building registration capabilities among staff in governmental institutions through training and workshops, while proactively driving birth registrations in both countries. The campaign was aligned with Johnson’s Baby’s core purpose to ensure all children receive the care and protection they deserve from the start.

Our creative concept was encapsulated by the campaign message: providing the right start for newborn babies. This aligned perfectly with Johnson’s Baby’s own purpose to create a world where every baby thrives. Marrying the two, the campaign helped ensure newborns were not immediately disadvantaged by a lack of a birth certificate, and extended the Johnson’s Baby brand to serve a broader purpose, beyond its products. Supporting the concept, we registered the campaign launch date, October 08, as International Birth Registration Day, creating a lasting legacy of awareness. For creative assets, we travelled to two continents and shot a series of beautiful, cinematic films that told raw and honest stories of families affected by unregistered births. Building interest before launch, we also devised a teaser campaign that saw influencers share numbers denoting their birth date and nothing more, creating an air of mystery and speculative chatter before the campaign reveal.

Partnering with Save the Children for their expertise, we engaged millennial parents in the Middle East who are digitally-savvy, socially connected, and cause-driven. To reach them, we tapped into the different media consumption habits across regional markets through paid, earned, and owned opportunities. A focused influencer marketing strategy used Instagram to tease and reveal the campaign, which was amplified by spokesperson interviews with Tier 1 TV channels Dubai One and Al Arabiya, alongside print outlets. The PR was backed by striking, cinematic digital content that fed our activities across disciplines, including display advertising on parent portals we’d identified as being most influential in the region. A campaign microsite drove further audience engagement, while in-store activations carried the concept offline, tying the campaign to the products. Our full scope of multi-discipline activities was mapped across three phases from October to December 2018, building a consistent and coherent conversation across every platform.

The pre-launch phase involved on-ground interaction with governmental organizations, charities, affected families and third-parties in local markets to build the campaign. The Right Start’s registration program generated worldwide interest in the cause via the influencer teaser campaigns launched on Instagram. On October 08 we launched and executed a media relations plan that focused on earned opportunities across Tier 1 TV, print, and online outlets, while our influencers revealed their posts across their social platforms. Display advertisements appeared on Mumznet - the region’s most influential parent portal, alongside other parent portals such as Supermama and 3a2ilati. This was complemented by a campaign of paid social comprising Facebook carousels, Instagram stories, Instagram TV, and YouTube ads - all featuring the same cinematic content shot on-ground. The in-store activations involved interaction with the parents who visited their local retailers including Carrefour and Spinneys across five countries, engaging them in the campaign beyond headlines.

The campaign generated over 75 media clippings across a variety of Tier 1 print, TV, and radio platforms, earning USD 675,000 in PR value and USD 225,000 in advertising value. 123,600 page views were generated through display advertising on Mumznet, with 83,200 users landing on the page and spending 94 seconds there - well above the brand benchmark.