We began by creating a new brand - Make Room - sponsored by Enterprise Community Partners, to raise awareness of the rental housing issue and provide people with direct and immediate ways to get involved (e.g. taking a pledge, sharing content or donating on makeroomusa.org and crowdrise.com).

Make Room developed a series of bespoke concerts, “Concerts for the 1st”, hosted by struggling renters across America to put a face to the rental housing crisis. The series allowed us to go behind the closed doors of the crisis and leverage a universally appealing vehicle, music, to shed light on the issue. Launching new content on the 1st of each month - the day rent is due - allowed us to stay continually relevant and newsworthy.

We kicked off in LA with Carly Rae Jepsen telling the Duarte family’s story. Timothy Bloom, John & Jacob, Miguel, American Authors, Tim Fain, and Third

Implementation:

Each new "Concert for the 1st", which included clips of the artists' performances, along with artist and family interviews, was launched on Make Room’s website and social channels. Make Room also tapped its growing email database to alert supporters of each new concert series, as well as with the latest news updates on the rental housing crisis.

Musical artists also shared the concert footage on their social channels and video channels (e.g. Vevo, Twitter, YouTube, etc.).

Timeline:

Each "Concert for the 1st" was launched on the first of the month to maintain ongoing relevance of the issue.

Placement:

Make Room concert clips were distributed as preroll media in :15s and :30s, as well as via static web banners and public relations / press support.

Scale:

Twenty-three pieces of content were created from six concerts with six renter stories across the country.

Reach:

On a limited budget, the Make Room campaign has achieved over 22 Million impressions to date, with 233,000+ site views and 619,000 organic (non-paid) video views.

It was featured or mentioned in over 850 news stories in less than 12 months.

Engagement:

54,000+ Americans signed Make Room’s Pledge on change.org to get renters on the nation’s agenda.

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Impact:

The campaign has resulted in a 36.4% lift in awareness vs. 12.7% benchmark (via Nielsen Vizu brand awareness study)

The campaign has raised over $50,800 to support struggling families (featured in the campaign) via Crowdrise

Make Room was invited to speak at SXSW in 2016 to address key influencers in a panel called, “How Music and Storytelling Can Inspire Social Change”.

In 2016, media coverage related to rental affordability is on track to generate more coverage than ever

Make Room "Concerts for the 1st" is a video series that partners with famous musicians around the country and leverages their celebrity to raise awareness for the U.S. rental housing crisis. Make Room produced, promoted and distributed each concert via contextual paid media buys, press features, owned and earned channels (Make Room and artist channels).

Each episode features a concert played in the home of an individual or family who is affected by increasingly unaffordable rent. Artists lent their voices to the cause, sharing personal anecdotes and live music with the families, their friends, the press and

With a number of audiences to reach and a limited budget to develop specific creative targeted at multiple groups, we decided to create a public-facing campaign that would raise awareness of the issue and galvanize mass support.

Our research identified a key tension amongst a public who deemed themselves caring and compassionate, but only for certain issues. While homelessness was a problem they could see, struggling renters was not. Many felt budgeting issues were that person’s own fault.

We needed to tell individuals’ stories to set context for the larger crisis in an engaging, motivating way. One that was sure to get people’s attention and create a sense of empathy.

The strategy was to “unhide” the rental housing crisis by leveraging the first of each month to shine a spotlight on the issue with a renter-universal truth: the day the rent is due, in a universally appealing way: music.

Situation:

Today there are 11 million families living one paycheck away from homelessness in America, who are forced to make tough choices between paying rent and paying for essential items such as groceries, schooling, medicine, etc. This national crisis was living behind closed doors.

Brief:

Enterprise Community Partners, one of the largest nonprofits in the U.S. housing sector, wanted to help solve the rental housing crisis.

There were a number of challenges to be tackled. First, there was a seemingly private issue that nobody was talking about (social stigma, lack of understanding, compassion). Second, Enterprise was largely unknown amongst a general public. Third, there were multiple audiences they wanted to reach (general public, housing industry, media, policymakers, corporate sponsors). Finally, we had a limited budget.

Objectives

The goal of the campaign was to create public awareness of the rental housing issue and inspire meaningful dialogue and support.