Our objectives were two-fold: to expose Big Tobacco for its tendency to prey on those who are most vulnerable, and in turn, to also help people, both young and old, to reject smoking/vaping and live healthier lifestyles.
The COVID-19 pandemic has people helping each other out in surprising ways. Even Big Tobacco has seemingly been in the "helping spirit", sending ventilators to hospitals, and offering free masks and delivery with online purchases of vape products. These actions might look admirable on the surface, but there is a much darker side to this story.
In order to help Truth expose Big Tobacco's actions during the pandemic, we enlisted the hard-hitting, comedic journalism of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Senior correspondent Roy Wood Jr. welcomed fans into his make-shift home office (his couch) and sarcastically played the role of a marketing consultant for Big Tobacco, offering them even more ways to prey on people during the hardest of times. Roy's outrageous inventions and ideas drove home the absurdity of Big Tobacco's attempts to help during a pandemic, when their true mission is profit.
The campaign consisted of a 2:40 hero video, which was distributed across The Daily Show’s social handles. A :30 cutdown also ran across Comedy Central’s linear channel, including in a premiere episode of The Daily Show. Lastly, a :06 ad ran across Snapchat, swiping up to the longform video.
Overall, The Daily Show’s social handles delivered 7M impressions, 1.5M video views, and 4K website link clicks. The video also received around 900k views on The Daily Show’s YouTube channel, 189k of which were completed video views, delivering 19.42% video view rate (vs. ViacomCBS benchmark of 10%-25%). Speaking of YouTube, the fans certainly made us feel the love with an impressive 7.7k likes vs. 280 dislikes. On Facebook, the social posts gathered 2.7M impressions, 452K video views and 22K click engagements, delivering 16.55% video view rate (Vs. ViacomCBS benchmark 12% -20%).
