Cannes Lions

The Worst Soap Opera

PAGÉS BBDO, Santo Domingo / UNICEF / 2018

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Overview

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Overview

Description

We created a piece of content that lured viewers in and showed them this reality. Soap operas are the most watched media and TV content in the country, that's why we created a ten episode story about an unusual kind of love: the lusty love of an adult man living with an underage girl and the raw violence and abuse that followed, all while her family was unable to do anything about it.

The show premiered with an integrated campaign and the episodes aired during prime time in the most important TV networks, and on the Internet right after. Indignation was our goal, we wanted to provoke the audience by making them angry with the content of the soap opera in order to start a conversation.

Execution

In the country, soap operas are the most viewed piece of content. We created a ten episode story about the lusty love of an adult man living with an underage girl and the raw violence and abuse that followed, all while her family was unable to do anything about it.

The show premiered with an integrated campaign and the episodes aired during prime time in the most important TV networks, and on the Internet right after. This ignited a conversation on social media were the viewers and the press asked to take the soap opera off air. Then, on live interviews we revealed that these stories were not fiction and were actually inspired by real life ones. After this, the conversation switched into a public cry from Celebrities, Media, and the public demanding the government to change the law. Each episode of the soup opera became a battle flag.

Outcome

- 10 episodes

-The Worst Soap Opera became trending topic offline & online.

- In the first 2 weeks: More than US$1,048,278 on earned media, More than 6,000,000 views on YouTube and FaceBook, in a country with only 10.6 million people.

-More than 200 airings and placements including major TV networks, PR coverage in TV, newspapers, magazines, digital channels, social media and radio.

-Over 1,000,000 influencers & bloggers echoed our message.

-Congressmen spoke publicly about the necessity to modify the law, and even the Vice-president got involved.

-A new law was made prohibiting marriage until 18 years of age, with out exceptions.

-The Campaign has been officially recognized as one of the most successful UNICEF campaigns.

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