When Children’s Wish Foundation, Canada’s only homegrown not-for-profit of its kind, approached us to help grant a child’s wish, we knew we could do more.
While it has granted nearly 25,000 wishes for children diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses, awareness of the charity was overshadowed by its much larger and well-funded American counterpart.
That’s why the challenge was two-fold. First, how could we grant a little girl’s wish to be famous? Yes, that was honestly her actual wish ;) And second, how could that wish ignite a movement to generate awareness for the brand nationally, if not around the world?
All with zero budget and absolutely no paid media spend.
Today, you’re not famous unless you try to break the Internet. Hits, followers, fans, likes and shares are what separate those who trend from those who don’t. So in order to reach both our objectives, we needed to leverage this cultural phenomenon and embrace the fact that everyone truly is a network.
Influenced by the success of the Dab and the Harlem Shake, the idea was to create a signature dance move for our wish kid Olivia, and with the help of the World Wide Web turn it into a movement. With that in mind, #DoTheLivi was born. Laser-focusing our sights on the dance community, we chose choreographer Blake McGrath of So You Think You Can Dance to take the lead. Together, he and Olivia created her signature dance move inspired by her unwavering optimism and bravery in the face of cancer.
To gain traction we tapped our influencer network. Leveraging local and international celebs, dance superstars like Maddie Zeigler posted videos, encouraging their millions of followers to #DoTheLivi too.
On the cusp of being famous, we needed one more attention-grabbing headline, so we partnered with Much Music and premiered her dance move live on the MMVAs. With millions watching at home and online, #DoTheLivi took off instantly. Within hours it was one of the most trending hashtags as Instagram, Twitter and Musical.ly feeds were inundated with videos of replicating her move. Even some Storm Troopers from LA got in on the action, along with a shout out from Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.
From appearances on local and nationally syndicated news programs and morning shows to dancing in game with the Toronto Raptors, there was no doubt her wish to be famous was granted.
To top it all off, she was given the MMVA award for Best Viral Dance Move – a feat Drake and the Biebs have yet to accomplish.
Within hours of her performance on the MMVAs, #DoTheLivi was trending nationally. In mere days, impressions grew to over 81 million. And with new social media platforms like Musical.ly, Olivia’s move was re-created and posted over 52,000 times with hundreds of thousands of people supporting her.
Combine that with an over 600% increase in followers on the brand’s social handles, and Children’s Wish was finally able to step out of the shadows of a US giant and increase the pool of potential donors tenfold.