Who launched headphones brand Beats by Dr. Dre in 2006? Anyone of a certain age would tell you, ‘the rapper, obviously!’. Gen Z? Possible blanks drawn.Without being able to rely on recognition of its iconic figurehead for relevance, the brand was struggling to connect to Gen Z, an audience driven by authenticity and creativity.

So with its new self-expression-friendly, colourful Powerbeats Pro headphones due for global launch, our challenge was to help Beats needed to meet this young audience on their terms.

The objectives of this campaign, based on using a social platform innovatively, were three fold. The first was to drive relevancy with Gen Z. The second was to improve brand awareness for Beats, by shifting perception of the Beats headphones from a utility to a tool that elevates the experience of music. And the third aim was to use music to celebrate colour, self-expression and creativity.

Our insights showed that our target audience, Gen Z, aren’t interested in simply commenting and sharing content online. They want to make their own unique content. They also don’t want to follow brands, rather, they want to join them.

So, how could we encourage this audience to connect and invest in the Beats brand?

By challenging them to co-create a new social currency alongside Beats on Gen Z’s favourite platform, TikTok. We wanted to work with the most expressive, colourful music icon around so we teamed up with made-on-TikTok star Ashnikko, to create the world’s first music video made with UGC on TikTok.

A key strategic component was the pyramid of talent used. Micro and nano influencers from launch markets helped to spread the word in an authentic and credible way. They were chosen from TikTok’s top categories – music, sports, fashion and gaming – that were most relevant to our audience.

In July 2020, we launched #beatsdaisychallenge, which is Beats by Dr Dre’s first ever campaign on TikTok and the biggest campaign the brand will run globally this year. It is also a world-first – the first time ever that TikTok creators were given the opportunity to be part of a music video.

Every week over four weeks, Ashnikko set TikTokers a fresh colour challenge, themed to the new Powerbeats Pro headphone colours, and invited her audiences to make their own TikToks based on their own interpretations, using hooky parts of her new track.

Our influencers shared their own creations and invited their own audiences to take part after each colour challenge drop.

The hashtag views grew at an incredible rate and millions of people from this notoriously hard-to-reach audience didn’t just view content, they actually made content in response. The best of which was selected by Ashnikko to be in her music video.

The campaign drove unprecedented reach and engagement for Beats, with 2.2 million user-generated videos uploaded using the hashtag #BeatsDaisyChallenge within the first three weeks of the campaign plus 946 million global engagements (likes/shares/comments). And to top this off, the #BeatsDaisyChallenge hashtag page received a staggering 8.1 billion views in the first month of the campaign going live.