In The Netherlands, there are no formal restrictions. It is, however, not usual to tell documentary stories for brands that aim to have a social impact. In this campaign we tried to tell an empowering story about a deaf girl who experiences a concert for the first time, enabled by technology. But it also became a story empowering deaf people in general and show the impact of the cochleair implant (CI). A lot of people think that such an implant enables deaf people to hear in a regular way again. This story tells about the reality of a CI, thereby both empowering our lead character, but also contributing to the understanding of deaf people in society in general.

First we asked the Dutch audience to think about the perfect song to play for Vera.

Award winning composer Kyteman, and his 25-piece orchestra, reworked the chosen song (#1 hit ‘Stay With Me’ by Sam Smith) into a version especially tailored for Vera’s CI, with certain frequencies being amplified or blocked.

The song became the highlight of a memorable evening for Vera in Amsterdam’s legendary music venue Paradiso. A captive audience of friends and family and other CI users witnessed the concert live. The whole journey was captured into an 8 minute branded documentary, and released online.

Based mainly on PR and social media, the campaign reached a total media value of €1,7 million

3 national TV items, 7 radio items and over 270 (inter)national publications. (including The Daily Mail)

On social media, the campaign reached 7,2 million people, with a 99% positive engagement rate.

Hasthag #firstconcert was trending topic on Twitter on the concert night, with over 300.000 views and 5.000 interactions.

All this contributed to a total reach of over 11 Million people (in a country of 16 Million).

Total reach 110M – Including international press

1.2M video views

99% positive sentiment