As the day was always going to be a heavy news day due to the centenary, we ensured cut through by including the hashtag #wearehere on the cards. This connected the public across the UK and also gave those without a social account a keyword to search on google.

The creative idea was divided into three parts:

7am - 6:30pm

*Create national awareness whilst keeping the details a secret.

*An unbranded website launched aggregating social posts containing #wearehere.

*Regional social influencers attended pre-planned locations.

*Photography and video assets were captured for the ‘reveal moment’.

*Leaks were identified and removed.

6:30pm

*BBC announced full details of the artwork during the 6:30pm News and across all platforms, including BBC News online, BBC Arts online and BBC Radio 1.

7pm

*The commissioning organisation plus 50 theatres, influencers and bloggers announced their involvement in a synchronized moment.

*The website relaunched with exclusive assets.

The strategy was fully integrated with Marketing, Press and Paid Media which generated not just a UK wide but global reach and awareness.

The website aggregating social content allowed those who weren’t ‘socially savvy’ to engage.

Imagery and videos were captured and edited into branded assets during the day and released to partners and Press at the reveal.

Around 50 influencers were engaged in advance under embargo and given very little information. They included local bloggers, organisations such as National Rail, Love Belfast, Mayor of London and high profile figures including Jon Snow, Dawn French and Lauren Laverne.

The BBC partnership increased awareness of the artwork significantly, even before the reveal moment.

Advertising:

*Google ads directed users searching for relevant keywords to the unbranded website.

*Post reveal - visitors were retargeted using Google, Facebook and Twitter advertising. Those using the hashtag and followers of the theatres involved were also targeted.

#wearehere exceeded 340million impressions – the target was 63million

The #wearehere hashtag trended for 14 hours+ and was the no.1 position for over 5 hours

It reached Twitter Moments no.1 position before the reveal

100,000+ online posts generated worldwide

Over 7,700 images were posted to Instagram

Over half the influencers’ tweets were used in articles on the BBC, ITV, Metro, Huffington Post, The New York Times, CNN and Mashable

114,000+ people visited www.becausewearehere.co.uk

YOUGOV RESULTS

63% of the UK adult population were aware of the project

2 million people experienced it live

Over 30 million experienced it via the media

Over two thirds agreed it made the Battle of the Somme more relevant to their lives

PAID

Estimated reach of all advertising (all adults +15): 5,787,000.

Estimated reach on Twitter: 1.6million impressions.

Instagram ads generated 28.5k likes

Google AdWords delivered 6,913 clicks overall, therefore the majority of traffic was organic.