ABOUT

Concept
Simple have always been kind to the skin and the planet, but they wanted to be kind to people too.
In the final year of their partnership with Little Mix and anti-bullying charity, Ditch the Label, Simple wanted to make an impact.
Simple wanted us to:
• Direct people to Ditch the Label for support
• Spread more kindness online amongst our target audience (and encourage people to pledge specific kind actions to take)
• Drive sales of their limited-edition range (proceeds of which were donated to Ditch the Label)

Simple’s audience are predominantly young women, who are at particularly high risk of online trolling and low self-confidence. As many as 7 out of 10 young people experience cyber-bullying. Worldwide, 115 million photos posted to social media are taken down each year after receiving negative comments. We identified a challenging hypocrisy within Simple’s audience: on the one hand, they identify as ‘Gen We’ and are collaborative, accepting, and actively champion diversity; however, they also have a ‘Gen Me’ side and can be competitive, follower-focussed, and appearance-obsessed. We needed to remind our audience to practice what they preach and treat others with the kindness they crave for themselves. 2019 saw us embed Simple’s ‘Kind to People’ brand purpose. In 2020, we needed to put this into action.
Execution
We went right to the heart of where cyberbullying happens – social media, with a mission to fill feeds with kindness. We made our campaign visually disruptive to stop our audience mindlessly scrolling past.
To encourage behaviour change, we needed examples of tangible actions our audience could take. Using Little Mix as kindness ambassadors, the band each made a pledge of a specific way in which they’ll be kinder – from lifting others up, to celebrating difference. We then encouraged our audience to make their own pledges. We created a host of eye-catching assets for Instagram, Instagram Stories, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube; and a follow-up film in which Little Mix interviewed a bullying victim to show the positive impact kindness can have.
We housed our visually disruptive film within a fake social feed. Framed as a static post, Little Mix appear to break out of the feed – stopping our audience in their tracks.
Our film travelled through the feed, across carousels and Stories, showing kindness taking over social. We used CGI animation to create 3D spinning hearts that burst towards the camera when Little Mix blew a kiss. Geometric triangles feature throughout the campaign look and feel, as well as the range packaging: the international symbol of female empowerment.
We created a suite of thumb-stopping cut-downs, perfectly bite-sized for social.
To drive action, we decided to show the impact kindness – or a lack of it – can have. In short and moving 10” Snaps, Little Mix interviewed a Ditch the Label ambassador and bullying victim, Jade. The Little Mix members each made a pledge to do something kind – and asked our audience to do the same. The band’s pledges offered inspiration, making it easier and less overwhelming for everyone to get involved.

And by making a public pledge, we encouraged our audience to hold themselves accountable. Helping to ensure that we would change the social media landscape for good, long after our campaign ended.
Results
Launching at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, our campaign for kindness couldn’t have come at a more necessary time. During the March-May 2020 lockdown, Ditch the Label (DTL) reported support requests rose by 158%.
Our #SimpleChooseKindness campaign was a huge success:
• 51,000 DTL site visits
• 3,000 young people sought DTL support
• Reached 84% of our target audience of women aged 16-24 (a +5% increase against our KPIs)
• 8.4million impressions amongst our target audience (a +200k increase against our KPIs)
• PR reach of 66.2million
• 389,000 units sold in the first 100 days
• £415,000 turnover in the first 100 days
• Over 2x average engagement rate on Simple’s organic activity (6% on average vs. 14% during campaign activity)