We see ‘Friends’ as an integrated campaign executed across multiple platforms. It placed strong creative messaging in traditional media spaces like TV, print, and OOH. It also had a strong presence in digital media, living as a branded content microsite and leveraging social audiences across Facebook, Instagram, and the web.

While Facebook is well known and used, it faces a challenge of often being seen as trivial. Our goal was to reinforce why Facebook exists in the first place- friendship. For this campaign we invited people of all ages in the UK and Canada to remember, appreciate and acknowledge the different friendships that are meaningful in their life.

Our insight was that there is no one definition of friend, and actually our different friendships enrich us and make us who we are. Our campaign worked to recognize them. Our strategy was to celebrate those friends who give meaning to the Facebook experience.

To execute, we launched with three manifesto TV spots. Then we created a microsite featuring 48 films and photos - each one made to be shared with a specific kind of friend on Facebook. The films also ran in an in-feed Facebook campaign and as Instagram’s first ever video ad campaign. Offline, the friend-specific films lived as a visually iconic billboard campaign.

So far, the campaign is increasing positive buzz and conversation for the brand and has garnered 2.8 billion impressions.

This campaign is just getting started and it’s effectiveness is still being measured, but so far it’s been a huge success. People have shared this campaign a quarter of million times. They've collectively viewed the content of this campaign 90 million times. And it’s garnered over 2.8 billion impressions in just three weeks.

But most importantly of all, it’s shifted brand sentiment positively by 10% in key demographics.

Our campaign launched with three TV spots that communicated our campaign message at the highest level. They worked to remind people of the meaning of all those different friendships.

At the same time, we unveiled a massive OOH campaign that featured traditional placements as well as highly contextual digital billboards, showcasing different friends in relevant locations.

Then we created a microsite that housed 48 films and photos - each one representing s different kind of friend. These content pieces were created to be shared on the Facebook platform. In addition to being housed on the microsite, the content lived as in-feed Facebook ads, prompting users to share them directly with Facebook Friends. And lastly, the digital films lived as Instagram’s first ever video ad campaign, encouraging users to tag their friends in each post.

Our challenge was that people have started questioning Facebook’s value as a product and motives as a company. So the primary objective of this campaign was to bring focus back to the most important part of Facebook - Friends.

Our insight was that there is no one definition of friend, and actually our different friendships enrich us and make us who we are. Our campaign worked to recognize them and remind people of the value of their many friendships, both on and off Facebook.

In letting people reflect on the different kinds of friends in their life we reinforced the truth that Facebook is a place where all different kinds of friendship thrive.