The world faced an unprecedented challenge during 2020. In the Philippines, the COVID-19 pandemic caused most businesses to shut down and all physical classes to be suspended. Filipino high school and college students were filled with uncertainty. How will they continue their education, their learning if they are quarantined at home? So Smart created Giga Study—a product that provides students free data and a host of learning tools. The task is now to launch this innovative product in an engaging way that is not your usual Facebook post, digital video, or online promo to excite students who are distracted with everything that’s happening around them. The goal that was set at the onset is to catch the target market’s attention and interest by letting them experience how the product can help them keep learning at home, how it can make thing simpler and more fun for them.

#LearnSmart at home. That is the central idea behind the campaign. During a time made complicated by the pandemic and its accompanying worries, Filipino students don’t need to study hard to keep learning—they need something that will enable and empower them to study smart at home. Every execution is guided by that idea. What’s a smart way to introduce the product to our target audience? What's an immersive execution that will let the students experience that learning smart is possible with the product? Now that physical classes are suspended indefinitely, how can we give these students that school experience even when they’re stuck at home? Even the choice of online platforms is inspired by the idea of doing things smart and placing the materials where the students usually are during the pandemic—YouTube and Facebook.

One of Smart’s key target audience is the Filipino youth, especially the high school and college students. This demographic is also one of the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from health risks, the pandemic also brought uncertainty to their lives as schools and universities across the Philippines cancelled all physical classes indefinitely for safety reasons. This brought an unexpected problem for these students—how to continue their studies, their learning if they are stuck at home. To launch Giga Study, a product that aims to help students keep learning at home, the strategy was to do something different, something that brand has never done before. An unexpected problem requires an unexpected solution. Instead of doing the usual efforts to launch the product, the approach was to create immersive and experiential executions that can give students information about the product and the school experience that they are currently missing.

On August 28, 2020, the campaign was launched with an immersive 360º video placed on YouTube and was soon followed by the first-ever Smart University 2020 Virtual Campus, a series of Facebook Live videos. The 360º YouTube featured five student KOLs that the brand tapped. These KOLs invited their followers and other students to watch and interact with the video to explore and discover how Giga Study can help them keep learning smart at home. The Facebook Live videos is divided into 3 sessions that feature seminars with experts, lessons with guest teachers, games, a concert, a pep rally, and a virtual campus tour. Every session was complemented by Facebook posts that recap some learnings, give follow-up quizzes, and more. Data showed that the target audience spend a significant amount of time online, with Facebook and YouTube among the top sites or platforms. That is why those two are chosen to be the main touchpoints for the campaign. Both the 360º video and the Facebook Live videos reached students nationwide, with viewers and participants coming all over the Philippines. Design-wise, both the 360º video and the Facebook Live sessions were kept simple to keep the focus or highlight on the experience. This is also reflected in the creative and production process. Every step and choice were made with the goal of highlighting the immersiveness and interactivity of the campaign—from the script and the editing of the 360º video, to the look and segments of the Facebook Live sessions. After months of further views and engagement, the campaign ended on January 2021.

Smart has always been at the forefront of innovation in the Philippines, and it is reflected in the innovative and immersive executions of the Giga Study launch campaign.

The campaign successfully appealed to Filipino students looking for tools that they can turn to for research, collaboration, and studying. Not only did the target audience watch the 360º YouTube video and attended the Facebook Live sessions, they also used the product.

As a result, total product (Giga Study family) performance achieved 195% vs. target revenues during its campaign period. Revenues went up to as much as 395% during the thick of the campaign launch vs. organic product launch.

In terms of Media Performance, the digital campaign reached 139% targeted Facebook audiences vs. KPI, effectively lowering the Cost Per Unit (CPU) by 30%. Promoted Trends and First View executions also exceeded targets by 37%. Delivery rate for Programmatic buys were also up by 25%.

In the end, everyone learned that even a pandemic cannot stop anyone from learning. That with passion and innovation, there’s always a Smart solution.