Our insight:

Babies move way more than their parents realise – over 3km* a day. *New York University

Our execution:

The World’s First Baby Marathon. From Huggies.

To prove just how much babies can move in a day, to put the comfort and fit of Huggies diapers to the test, and to thereby clearly demonstrate why these nappies are the best choice for active little ones, we chose four babies and gave them an audacious goal: 21 adult-length kilometers.

Our custom-made distance-tracking device:

Thanks to the data collected by the babies’ custom-designed distance-tracking devices, our little athletes were able to race one another on our online race course, in real time, from the comfort of their own homes. Their progress was packaged as a series of highlights videos, which were released across multiple digital platforms, until the first baby crossed the finish line 5.8 days later.

Teaser start-date: 28 August 2017.

Marathon start-date: 18 September 2017.

The marathon unfolded in real time for 13 days, with the first baby crossing the finish line in 5.8 days. The campaign was promoted across multiple digital and social platforms (Facebook, search, mobile/premium display and YouTube) for 9 weeks in total. This included a three-week teaser phase to build our audience, two weeks of real-time marathon, and a four-week sum-up of the campaign. During our teaser phase, we also used limited TV and cinema support, as well as targeted instore promotion. The campaign consisted of our campaign page, 1 X 75 second promo film, 3 X 10 second teaser films, various promoted ‘teaser’ social posts (profiles of our four babies, baby warm-ups, a countdown timer, etc) and an instore and online competition where parents could win branded Huggies World’s First Baby Marathon gear for both themselves and their babies.

• The marathon led to a 28.9% increase in diaper sales

• It generated a 29:1 return on investment

• There were over 8.4 million views of the campaign

• It resulted in over R2.4 million in earned PR

• The click-through rate was 194% higher than industry average

• Plus the marathon trended within 10 minutes of launch for 9 hours