Four out of every 10,000 children born each year across the globe are born with a birth defect. Up to 10,000 suffer amputations and injuries. A prosthetic for a child can cost $40,000 and up. Albert Manero’s team at Limbitless Solutions 3D prints bionics for $80-$400 and donates them to children who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford them.

The campaign leveraged the social nature of college millennials and the power of Robert Downey Jr.’s social influence to create awareness of Limbitless Solutions to organizations like the UN & Unicef, as well as children in need around the world.

Today’s student’s big ideas are made reality only through the help of others. OneNote, a product in the Microsoft Office Suite, provided efficient ways to collaborate on shared ideas. Our challenge was to make a connection with an audience who demanded more from brands and tuned out traditional media tactics.

We accomplished this by finding incredible students, like Albert Manero, leader of Limbitless Solutions. His incredible project delivers bionic limbs to children in need through low-cost 3D printing. We put OneNote in their hands and invited others to get involved with The Collective Project.

Introducing Robert Downey Jr. (who participated for free) to Albert Manero’s cause ignited the true power of the collective and gave Albert and his team a global stage.

The video has over 2 billion impressions and counting. Additionally, Limbitless Solutions has over 660 requests for bionic limbs across the globe.

College students today have always been able to get directly involved in brands and issues that they care about through social networks. They demand more from brands and marketers than any other generation. They expect more than storytelling; they expect brands to live their values, and act on the stories that they tell. They expect story-doing. We knew we had to prove that we could live our core brand values before trying to sell them on OneNote.

Our strategic approach was to demonstrate through story-doing how Office helps students make great ideas a reality via community involvement.

The creative connected emotionally and authentically giving a cause like Albert Manero’s a global stage.

Teaser Phase: 2/12 – 2/18

Targeted videos to our audience in social

Momentum Phase: 2/18 – 3/16

Deploy social influencers

• Seeding through BOMs to campus influencers (student organizations, professors, and university PR)

Story-Doing Phase. 2/18 – 3/16

Real-time amplification of on-campus events acted as a celebration of student and peer accomplishment highlighting OneNote’s role.

• Massive influencer amplification in earned media. Robert Downey Jr. volunteered his time to present an Iron Man style bionic arm to a young child in need.

The campaign enjoyed amazing success as a result of our strategy and tactics for engaging with students. Since the campaign, Limbitless Solutions has received over 600 requests for limbs from over 100 countries and seen an increase in donations +1,000% fold.

As of 3/25/15, the campaign resulted in:

• 2 billion impressions on social channels—14x our goal

• 76 million engagements including video views—9x our goal

• An additional potential reach of 517,759,297 from traditional media coverage from over 100 outlets

Additionally, our strategic pivot created a lift in sentiment for OneNote, moving from 27% positive to 31% positive in only three weeks.

The planning: We sourced data from far-reaching sources, combing through thousands of pages of quantitative and qualitative reports on the target. As a result, we created a clear, dynamic portrait of today’s college student allowing us to make a fundamental change in approach for the target.

The Collective Project derived massive momentum through online video embedded natively on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Content was rooted in authenticity, demonstrating how OneNote helped amplify student’s ideas to make an impactful difference in the world. The campaign was designed to connect emotionally through engaging content first, then drive to a deeper experience.

The idealism of youth is a remarkable thing but is limited by reach and resources. The Collective Project searched for students with world-changing ideas and gave them a global stage. Empowering them with OneNote, we set out to make these students and their causes celebrity.

Four out of every 10,000 children born each year across the globe are born with a birth defect. Up to 10,000 suffer amputations and injuries. A prosthetic for a child can cost $40,000 and up. Albert Manero’s team at Limbitless Solutions 3D prints bionics for $80-$400 and donates them to children in need.