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UwiredPlaza and MXit have pioneered the use of mobile instant messaging (IM) and social networking for a campaign to raise awareness of the ‘15andCounting’ global political initiative to foster better sexual health and education for all – and to use the mobile channel to place tangible pressure on governments to honour their commitments made at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 15 years ago in Cairo and due to run for 20 years.
The campaign sought signatories to a digital petition to be unveiled at the United Nations in Spring 2010. It also conducted a follow-up mobile survey to further understand young people’s views on the issues raised.
UnwiredPlaza was brought in by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) as consultants by agency Grayling – previously known as Trimedia – to look at how, with five years left to run, the campaign could look to connect with young people across the world using mobile –the ideal vehicle to reach the youth audience, especially in developing countries where these issues are particularly pressing and the penetration of mobile is far higher than PCs.
UnwiredPlaza approached MXit, a global mobile IM community provider with a customer footprint of 19 million customers – 13 million in South Africa, 1 million in the rest of Africa, 3 million in SE Asia and 2 million in the ROW, mainly Latin America – to promote the campaign petition and survey in line with its commitment to social development initiatives, especially AIDS, which has devasted South Africa’s youth.
The MXit contribution to total traffic dwarfed other channels, generating 500,000 15andcounting.mobi site hits and hundreds of thousands of petition sign-ups.
“This has been one of the first campaigns to successfully harness mobile IM and generated phenomenal results – it’s a whole new marketing platform and we are now looking at how we can expand on this strategic partnership with MXit,” says Will Hippisley from Unwired Plaza. |
