On 14March2020 a state of emergency was declared in Spain over COVID-19. At the time it was vitally important to raise awareness among the population of the safety measures to avoid the spread.

These included keeping a safe distance of 2m. This insight sparked an idea in the minds of two of the agency’s creatives that materialised within 24hours of its inception: a global challenge that would invite brands around the globe to increase the letter-spacing of their logos and publicise this change on their respective channels&platforms in order to get the message out as widely as possible.

Objectives:

- Primary: for the public to understand the importance of staying at least 2metres away from one another in public venues.

- Secondary: to approach as many advertisers as possible in Spain and around the world through a campaign demonstrating creativity and agility based on facts

On 14 March 2020 a state of emergency was declared in Spain over COVID-19. At the time it was vitally important to raise awareness among the population of the safety measures being put in place by the public health authorities to avoid the spread.

These included keeping a safe distance of 2 metres from other people. This insight sparked an idea in the minds of two of the agency’s creatives that materialised within 24 hours of its inception: a global challenge that would invite brands around the globe to increase the letter-spacing of their logos and publicise this change on their respective channels and platforms in order to get the message out as widely as possible.

The objective was clear: for the public to understand the importance of staying at least 2 metres away one another in public venues.

With the rapid spread of the coronavirus around the world we realised that it was important to contribute to raising awareness among the population regarding the safety measures put in place by public health authorities. After studying them, we realised that there was one that did not require anything special, just a small personal gesture of keeping a safe distance from other people.

This insight sparked the idea of increasing the letter-spacing of brands’ logos as a symbolic gesture to remind people that, for the time being, it is vital that we give each other a bit more space, and leave no room for the coronavirus.

To achieve our objective we needed to focus on two target audiences; the general public as the primary target for our message, and brands as our secondary target that, through their participation, would act as the vehicle for its dissemination.

The idea consisted of encouraging companies, organisations and institutions around the world to temporarily modify one of a brand’s inalterable components: its logo. The fact is that modifying a logo is not is not undertaken lightly, and until then was almost always the consequence of a brand repositioning. However, on this occasion, there was something greater at stake: stressing the importance of keeping a safe distance of 200 cm.

So, how were they encouraged to do this? By increasing the letter-spacing (tracking) of their brand logo to 200.

o The idea was launched in record time: 24 hours.

o The entire campaign was carried out with a digital approach, adapting to the context in which consumption of this medium by users increased exponentially.

o A minimalist style was adopted, so that it would be the message itself that took centre stage.

o A video (https://youtu.be/ckuApYLj4xk) was developed for the launch explaining what the action consisted of and showing the steps to follow to make the modification to the logo.

o A PR & Social Media campaign was developed: sending out press releases, changing the look & feel of the agency’s accounts, posts announcing the challenge and contact with influencers.

o A landing page was also launched (www.the200challenge.com) which was updated on a daily basis with all the latest brands joining in the challenge along with fresh data on the extent of the campaign’s reach.

o When the challenge reached 1,000 brands, we launched a second phase to continue reminding people of the importance of keeping a safe distance. The message was clear and simple: “So far 1,000. Only 1,000 so far” (https://youtu.be/JjehUoFFaqo).

1,360 companies from 35 countries joined in the challenge with a reach of +519 million users.

- Modifications were made to the logos of major Spanish IBEX35 companies (Telefónica, Iberdrola), top retail brands (Zara, L’Oreal, Decathlon), media outlets (El Mundo, ElEconomista), energy (Cepsa), airlines (Air Europa), culture (Museo del Prado), sports (LaLiga), electronics (Philips, Huawei) and insurance firms (SANTALUCÍA, Asisa, Reale), among others.

- Nº1 in the “Best Ads of the Week” ranking by Adforum. “Best Campaign” for Directory.

- +300 impacts and earned value of €1,248,844. Headlines include:

• Elle: “From Zara to Desigual, firms change their logos to raise awareness about social distancing”.

• Ads of brands: “More Than 1,000 Brands From 34 Countries Have Joined #The200challenge and the Number of Participants Keeps Growing Every Hour”.

• El Mundo: “Zara, El Corte Inglés and hundreds of brands temporarily change their logos to raise awareness among the population”.