Following the success of the launch of our first kinetic football pitch activation in Rio de Janeiro, we built Africa’s first kinetic and solar football pitch at the Federal College of Education in Lagos. Shell teamed with global music star Akon to launch the pitch in mid-December and shine a light on the power of innovative options for access to smarter energy. Akon’s background as a renewables investor through his foundation Akon lighting Africa gave us the perfect ambassador. Performing and acting as a spokesperson for the pitch launch, we used the opportunity to shoot the video for his next song which is part of the Akon/Shell partnership, drawing attention to the need more ideas to improve our energy future.

Implementation

We positioned Shell as playing an active role in a better energy future with our football pitch activation in Nigeria, partneing with music star Akon. This kick-started our new #makethefuture brand campaign for 2016. We produced 2 online videos and pre roll assets to tell our story.

Timeline

We had 7 months from ideation to execution, launching the pitch with Akon in November 2015.

Placement

We told this story in a new way for Shell using short, snackable content, employing the voices of respected peers and influencers to mirror the digital led content that millennials are already engaging with. This gave our audience a more relatable and stronger appreciation of Shell, equipping them with the meaningful and relevant connector of music to share with their personal network.

Scale

The story of our partnership with Akon was told globally across Shell’s key markets – UK, US, Brazil, Nigeria and Canada.

Quantitative pre-testing of our campaign assets told us that #makethefuture assets were working as we intended. 42% of millennials said they ‘liked and did not expect’ the stories.

The content was seen once released. Our phase 1 launch film featuring Pele was seen by more than 5m millennials whilst the #makethefuture campaign in 2015 has achieved 113 million social views. (Source: Mediacom PCA)

People spent time with it. In total people have spent 31 years watching #makethefuture content. (Source: Mediacom PCA)

They talked about Shell. Social listening data during the campaign showed Shell mentioned in almost 3x as many conversations regarding innovation and technology compared to the nearest direct competitor (BP). Shell was mentioned in more innovation conversations in the period than GE Energy, Google Energy, and IBM combined. (Source: Mediacom social listening study)