COVID-19 vaccinations were set to roll out to everyone 18+, yet no vaccination marketing was targeting Gen Z or Millennials. CVS had the opportunity to change that by going all-in on a platform that sparked joy like no other—TikTok. The #OneStepCloser challenge positioned CVS as a partner in health during and after the pandemic, inviting people to share the things they were most excited to get back to post-vaccine. It positioned CVS as a trusted partner in healthcare and pioneer in paving a pathway to returning to those things everyone missed most. We partnered with Puerto Rican Urban Pop duo Domino Saints to record an original song that served as the heartbeat of the viral challenge. A diverse group of influential teachers, nurses, artists, and parents on TikTok joined Domino Saints to share their own spin on the challenge and encourage participation.

The decision to partner with Domino Saints and create One Step Closer was the easiest of this whole process. CVS was clear that they wanted a movement. We had a clear path to creating one using TikTok. And no movement could be complete without an anthem to power it, just like no viral TikTok moment is complete without an original sound to define it.

Now we just had to hammer out the details.

Domino Saints had powerful reach on TikTok, but they’d need help to fully jumpstart the challenge. We leveraged the TikTok Creator Marketplace to identify relevant creators who could get the ball rolling. With our cast in place, we got ready to raise the curtain.

We synced the release of the #OneStepCloser Challenge with the official day people 18+ could get vaccinated at CVS – April 19th, 2021. Since the challenge itself is a call to action to get vaccinated, we wanted to ensure that the moment people first heard Domino Saints’ new song, they could dance their way right down to CVS and take that one step towards normal. The hashtag challenge launched exclusively on TikTok and was supported by promoted in-feed videos featuring our cast of creators. It remained live on TikTok for three days, with the supporting promotional content running for two weeks and the landing page housed on platform for 90 days.

The campaign generated 79MM impressions and 1.8MM user-created videos. In the three days it was live, the #OneStepCloser Challenge drove over 2.2B video views, rounding out at 4.7B by the end of the landing page’s lifecycle. We were able to take CVS, a trusted brand and figure in the healthcare community and foster that standing with the next generations – particularly in the context of putting the COVID-19 pandemic behind us.