The way to burst the bubble was to expose people to content opposite to what they are already consuming, in order to make them understand the other side’s opinions.

Trough data analysis we identified online influencers with audiences that had the least in common. We challenged them to swap their lives for a day, record the experience and share it on the social media channels of the opposite vlogger. We chose influencers who tackle the main problems dividing our society such as LGBT rights (Romania being one of the most conservative countries in Europe), immigration, vaccination, religion, tradition vs. modernity, body shaming, #rezist etc.

During the swap, the takeover was both in real and digital life, all the experience being recorded on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat.

In one particular swap, people discovered an amazingly talented gay choreographer and dancer, Rengle. The huge audience of the heterosexual hypermacho guy he swapped with realized how much the two have in common, and the difficulty and amount of work needed to achieve such level of dancing performance. The positive response gave Rengle confidence to participate to Romania’s got Talent (country’s no.1 show), and more people to vote his way through the finals. In this way he became Romania’s first openly gay person achieving such a direct appreciation from the public and has a major chance to win the show!

This is just one of the numerous stories enabled by the campaign, that made Romanians question their stereotype beliefs and change the way they consume social media.

“Vlogger swap” became a trend, hundreds of vloggers started swapping their channels.

The swaps generated over 9.5 million views (while the targeted universe was 1 million people).

Several videos entered in top 3 YouTube trending.

The campaign generated over 300.000 positive organic reactions on social media (likes, comments, shares).

“Vlogger swap” was featured in prime-time news on all main TV channels, and on all main Romanian digital outlets.

The total reach of the initiative was around 85%.

All the results were obtained with 0 media costs.

Telekom brand attributes such as recommendation, likability, consideration and purchase intent became at least 50% higher for millennials exposed to the campaign vs. the ones unexposed.

During this campaign Telekom achieved an all-time best in terms of revenue.

The result that proves above anything else our target engagement and campaign’s long-term effect is that it generated over 500.000 new subscribers from the “opposite side”.

In Romania, vloggers are by far the no.1 influencers for millennials. Young Romanians don’t look up to rock stars or movie celebrities anymore, but to vloggers – self-made Internet personalities that succeeded trough their own talent and efforts. TV is rarely an option for this target, so vlogs became their no.1 source of content, information and entertainment.

Online communities are built around those vloggers, and vloggers’ content is part of what those communities are consuming each and every day in their “bubble”.

Therefore, they not only had the credibility to influence our target, but also the direct channel to do so. So, we challenged vloggers as different as possible to swap their lives and social media channels.

We wanted to create an example that included a dozen swaps, involving the very influential vloggers who set the trend in the vlogosphere, and then let the idea perpetuate itself on social media.

The Filter Bubble

Internet algorithms show us information we already agreed with. Thus, we’re never exposed to alternative perspectives. This generates polarization and intolerance, two of the most present issues of today’s world. Millennials rely almost exclusively on social media to form their opinions, consequently they are the most affected by the filter bubble.

Telekom is a brand that believes above all in sharing, and the filter bubble is a phenomenon that goes against its core principle. So, as a brand responsible for enabling people’s digital life, it had to take action.

The campaign objective was making millennials realize the effect of the filter bubble and help them overcome this issue as much as possible.